Imitation-Firearm Law

Marking rules, state look-alike laws, transport, display and shipping for realistic replica light guns.

Firearms

Imitation-Firearm Law · Deep Dive

Imitation-Firearm Law

A realistic gun controller is still treated as a gun on the street.

Marking rules, state look-alike laws, transport, display and shipping for realistic replica light guns.

Photo: Airsoft K1A and FN SCAR replicas for sale in Seoul, each with an orange muzzle part by Ominae · CC BY-SA 4.0

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sten gun
pages with both words
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sten OR sterling
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sten -replica
leave out pages that mention “replica”

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Whole deep dives are listed first, then the pages inside them.

    Volumes

    1. Vol 1 The Federal Rule for Makers and Sellers 15 U.S.C. § 5001 read from the seller's side: the regulation that moved to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and now sits at 16 CFR part 1272, what \"manufacture\" and \"enter into commerce\" mean for a kit, the exemptions and the waiver, the certificate a seller must issue, and the penalties that reach a seller through the Consumer Product Safety Act
    2. Vol 2 State Look-Alike Laws for a Kit Seller Which states ban the sale of a realistic replica outright, which accept the federal marking, which leave it to their cities, and which only punish misuse: California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and the District of Columbia, each read from the legislature's own text
    3. Vol 3 City Ordinances That Stop a Sale New York City's ban on selling, possessing or using a realistic imitation, Chicago's total ban on replica firearms and on replicas of military weapons, Boston's public-property rule, and what a seller does about cities that ban what their states allow
    4. Vol 4 Shipping a Replica Gun What USPS Publication 52, UPS's published rules and the 2026 FedEx Service Guide actually say about non-firing replicas, inside the United States and abroad; the FedEx line on 3-D-printed weapons; and how to pack and label a kit so that the carrier, the state and the buyer are all satisfied
    5. Vol 5 Selling Abroad: Britain, Canada and Australia The United Kingdom's offence of selling or importing a realistic imitation firearm and its list of unrealistic colours, Canada's classification of replica firearms as prohibited devices, and Australia's import ban on imitations of any material or colour: why a realistic MP7 light gun cannot be exported to any of them
    6. Vol 6 The Printed MP7, and the Checklists Whether a 3-D-printed realistic MP7 body is a look-alike firearm (it is), what the new state 3-D-printing laws do and do not reach, what printing changes in practice, and two checklists with the reason for each line: one for the single gun used indoors in Ovid, and one for a kit offered for sale