City Ordinances That Stop a Sale

3.1 Why cities matter more than states here

Three of the largest US cities regulate replica guns more tightly than their states do. Illinois has no state law, but Chicago bans replicas outright. Massachusetts has no state law, but Boston restricts them. New York State bans the sale of a realistic imitation, and New York City adds a ban on possessing and using one. For a seller this matters in two ways. The ordinances themselves reach sales inside the city. And a customer in one of these cities cannot lawfully own what the kit builds, which is a reason not to ship there whatever the seller’s own exposure.

The MP7 Donor Build, Vol 3 read Grand Rapids, Ypsilanti and Ovid for an owner in Michigan; they are not repeated here.

3.2 New York City: sale, possession and use

The city’s rule is § 10-131(g) of the Administrative Code. It was read on the city’s official code host on 2026-10-20, when the code was “Current through Local Law 2026/147”.¹

g. 1. It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or offer for sell, possess or use or attempt to use or give away, any toy or imitation firearm which substantially duplicates or can reasonably be perceived to be an actual firearm unless: (a) the entire exterior surface of such toy or imitation firearm is colored white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright blue, bright pink or bright purple … ; or (b) … constructed entirely of transparent or translucent materials … ; and (c) the barrel … is closed with the same material of which the toy or imitation firearm is made for a distance of not less than one-half inch from the front end of said barrel, and; (d) … has legibly stamped thereon, the name of the manufacturer or some trade name, mark or brand … ; and (e) … does not have attached thereto a laser pointer …

The conditions are the same four as New York State’s (Volume 2, § 2.4). What the city adds is the list of verbs: possess or use. A realistic MP7 light gun cannot lawfully be kept in a New York City apartment. A bright-coloured one with an open camera muzzle fails condition (c) as well.

The exemptions in g.2 are narrow. They cover “the possession or display of toy or imitation firearms by a manufacturer or dealer solely for purposes of sales that are accompanied by delivery to a point without the city”, which lets a dealer in the city sell to customers outside it. They also cover film and television use under a waiver, pre-1898 collector replicas, and miniatures up to 38 × 70 mm. Enforcement is by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection before the city’s administrative tribunal. Civil penalties run from $1,000 to $5,000 for a first offence and $3,000 to $8,000 for each later one within two years.

The department’s inspection checklist for shops puts it bluntly: “Fake guns with brightly colored red or orange tips are illegal if the rest of the gun is dark-colored.”² That sentence is the whole problem for a realistic MP7 with an orange band. The band that satisfies the federal rule does nothing in New York City.

3.3 Chicago: no replica firearms at all

Chicago’s rule sits in the chapter on weapons dealers, § 4-144-190, “Replica firearms and pellet guns”.³

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to purchase, possess, conceal, use, sell, give away or otherwise transfer, or to engage in the business of selling or to exhibit for sale, a replica firearm, paint pellet or paint pellet gun in the City of Chicago, except as provided in subsection (c) of this section.

The definition describes a light gun almost word for word:

“Replica firearm” means any device, object or facsimile made of plastic, wood, metal or any other material, that a person could reasonably perceive as an actual firearm but that is incapable of being fired or discharged, including, but not limited to, mobile phone cases, lighters, and cameras …

“Incapable of being fired or discharged” is what a light gun is, and the list even names cameras. Unlike New York’s rule, Chicago’s has no colour safe harbour. The only question is whether “a person could reasonably perceive” the object “as an actual firearm”. The same subsection then adds that “each such replica firearm shall have as an integral part, permanently affixed, a blaze orange plug” in the barrel. That is a requirement on top of the ban, not a way out of it.

Subsection (c) allows manufacture, distribution and sale only “solely for subsequent transportation in intrastate, interstate or foreign commerce”; such devices “shall not be displayed to the general public or sold for other use in the city”. Fines run from $100 to $750 per offence, with up to six months’ imprisonment available as a misdemeanour.

The next section, § 4-144-195, bans buying, possessing or selling “any replica rocket propelled grenade launcher, bazooka, artillery piece, grenade, mine, bomb, or items similar to weapons designed and manufactured for military purposes or replicas thereof” (fine $100–$500). The MP7 was designed for military users. Whether a replica MP7 is “similar to weapons designed … for military purposes” is untested, but it adds nothing a seller can act on: § 4-144-190 already rules a realistic MP7 out in Chicago.

The upshot: no realistic MP7 light gun, marked or not, can lawfully be bought, owned or sold in Chicago. A bright-coloured, toy-like gun is probably not a replica firearm, because a person could not “reasonably perceive” it as real. That depends on how toy-like it actually looks.

3.4 Boston: public property

Boston’s ordinance, City of Boston Code § 16-5B (Ord. 2015 c. 10), defines a replica firearm as anything “which, because of its color, size, shape or other characteristics, can reasonably be perceived to be a real firearm capable of firing a bullet or other projectile”.⁴ Its operative rule:

16-5B.2 Regulation. No person shall sell, offer to sell, possess, use, display or give away, any replica firearm on a public property unless …

The conditions follow New York’s pattern: the entire exterior a listed bright colour or clear, a barrel closed with “a blase orange plug” for ½ inch, a maker’s mark, and no laser pointer. Two details differ:

• Boston’s colour list leaves out green. It reads “white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright blue, bright pink or bright purple”. A bright-green kit passes the federal rule and New York’s, and fails Boston’s.
• The scope is “on a public property”. Read literally, Boston’s rule governs selling and carrying on public property, not a sale from a private shop or delivery to a private home. Penalties are light: forfeiture and a $50 fine for a second or later violation. When an under-18 is found with one, a police officer contacts the parent.

A separate Boston ordinance on selling replicas, with an interstate-commerce exception, appeared in search results. It was not read and is not relied on here.

3.5 Michigan’s cities and the District of Columbia

Michigan. Grand Rapids, Ypsilanti and Ovid are read in the Donor Build, Vol 3, § 3.7. Grand Rapids bars displaying an imitation in public unless its orange marking shows, and bars possessing one with the marking removed. For a seller that has one consequence: a buyer in Grand Rapids who removes the band commits a city offence. Packaging and instructions should say plainly that the band stays. Because Michigan’s preemption statute does not cover non-firing replicas, any other Michigan city may have, or may adopt, a similar rule.

The District of Columbia is covered in Volume 2, § 2.8: no sale rule was found, and its imitation-firearm provision is a crime-of-violence enhancement.

3.6 What a seller does about cities

1. Do not ship a realistic MP7 to New York City or Chicago addresses. Both cities ban possession by the buyer, and both reach the sale. A shop’s checkout can block by city name and by ZIP code. The USPS publishes which ZIP codes belong to which city, and the blocking list should be built from that rather than from memory.
2. For Boston, the rule is about public property, but the colour list shows how far a “safe colour” can drift between jurisdictions. If a coloured kit is ever offered, choose orange, yellow, red, blue, pink or purple. Those colours appear in every list in Volume 2, § 2.9.
3. Tell every buyer the band stays on, in the box and on the listing. It protects the buyer in Grand Rapids-type cities. It also protects the seller from appearing to market a product designed to have its marking removed. California makes removal a crime (Penal Code § 20150) and requires a packaging advisory saying so (§ 20160).
4. Assume any other large city has an ordinance until its code says otherwise. That was the Donor Build volume’s rule for an owner, and it holds for a seller. The ordinances read here use four different words for the same object: “imitation”, “replica”, “facsimile” and “toy”. A search of a city code needs all four.

3.7 What could not be verified

• Whether Chicago or New York City has ever enforced its rule against an out-of-city online seller. No case or enforcement action was found.
• Boston’s separate sale ordinance (search results only, not read).
• Cook County’s replica-sale ordinance, mentioned in a search summary with fines of up to $750, was not read.
• Other cities. Only the four above, plus the three Michigan cities in the Donor Build, were read. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and other cities known for gun ordinances were not checked.

Sources

Footnotes

1. New York City Administrative Code § 10-131(g), American Legal Publishing (the city’s official code host), https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYCadmin/0-0-0-6218, read 2026-10-20 in a browser; banner “Current through Local Law 2026/147, enacted September 12, 2026”. ↩

2. NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, “Inspection Checklist: Fake, Toy, or Imitation Guns”, updated 08/2022, https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/businesses/ImitationGuns.pdf, read 2026-10-20. ↩

3. Municipal Code of Chicago §§ 4-144-190 and 4-144-195 (the latter added Coun. J. 7-27-05), American Legal Publishing, https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/chicago/latest/chicago_il/0-0-0-2633387 and /0-0-0-2633396, read 2026-10-20 in a browser. ↩

4. City of Boston Code § 16-5B.1–16-5B.4 (CBC 1985; Ord. 2015 c. 10 § 1), American Legal Publishing, https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/boston/latest/boston_ma/0-0-0-10987, read 2026-10-20 in a browser. ↩