California has enacted strong laws to curb gun trafficking in various ways, including some provisions summarized in greater detail on other pages regarding California laws regulating gun dealers, ammunition vendors, gun shows, the ghost gun market, and bulk firearm purchases, among others.

As discussed in further detail below, California has recently enacted legislation that will, starting in 2023, require the the state Department of Justice to publish annual reports analyzing crime gun tracing patterns in the state, including information regarding the leading suppliers of guns recovered from suspected criminal activity disaggregated by gun dealer and manufacturer. Legislation enacted in 2022 also requires the state Department of Justice to notify local law enforcement when a person who is legally disqualified from purchasing firearms or ammunition attempts to do so and fails the background check.¹

Straw Purchases

California prohibits any person from selling, loaning, or transferring a firearm to any person he or she knows or has cause to believe is not the actual purchaser or transferee of the firearm, or the person actually being loaned the firearm (such a person is known as a “straw purchaser” – someone not in a prohibited category who buys firearms on behalf of a prohibited purchaser), if he or she knows that the firearm is to be subsequently sold, loaned, or transferred in violation of California’s background check requirement and other requirements related to the sale, loan, or transfer of a firearm.² California law also prohibits a person from acquiring a firearm with the intention of selling, loaning, or transferring it in violation of the requirement that sales or transfers by unlicensed parties must be conducted through a licensed dealer.³ A dealer is prohibited from acquiring a firearm with the intention of selling, loaning, or transferring it to a person under the age of 21 if the firearm is a handgun, or to a person under the age of 18 if the firearm is a long gun.⁴ Finally, a dealer is prohibited from acquiring a firearm with the intention of selling, loaning, or transferring it in violation of California’s requirements for the delivery of a firearm, including the mandatory 10-day waiting period, presentation of a firearm safety certificate, and the one-gun-per-month requirement.⁵

Shipments into California

California law prohibits any federal firearms licensee (“FFL”) in California from importing or receiving firearms into the state unless he or she is on: 1) the state’s centralized list of licensed firearms dealers; 2) the state’s centralized list of FFLs exempted from the state’s licensing requirement; or 3) the state’s centralized list of firearms manufacturers.⁶ Whenever an FFL intends to deliver, sell or transfer firearms to an FFL whose licensed premises are in California, the shipper must obtain from the California Department of Justice (“DOJ”), prior to delivery, a unique verification number.⁷ DOJ will issue a unique verification number only if the intended recipient of the firearms is on one of the three lists mentioned above.⁸ The shipper must then provide this number to the recipient upon delivery of the firearms.⁹ For more information, see DOJ’s FAQs regarding the California Firearms Licensee Check (“CFLC”) Program.

DOJ may use the fees that firearm purchasers pay to DOJ during the purchase of any firearm (“DROS fees”) to fund, among other things, DOJ’s firearms-related regulatory and enforcement activities related to the sale, purchase, possession, loan, or transfer of firearms.¹⁰

Out-of-State Firearm Purchases by California Residents

In most circumstances, California residents may not transport or bring a firearm purchased or obtained from outside of the state into California unless the firearm is first delivered to a licensed gun dealer in California for delivery to that resident in compliance with all of California’s requirements for sale of a firearm, including a background check, 10-day waiting period, and verification of a valid firearm safety certificate by the purchaser.¹¹ This requirement is subject to limited exceptions, such as for a licensed firearm dealer or wholesaler acting within the scope of their business activities as a dealer or wholesaler, or to a licensed collector who is otherwise in compliance with California law.¹²

Self-Assembled Firearms and Firearms Without Serial Numbers

In recent years, California has significantly strengthened its laws governing the sale of ghost gun products and manufacture and assembly of firearms by unlicensed manufacturers, including prohibitions on manufacturing unserialized firearms. See the Ghost Guns in California section for more detailed descriptions of these laws and requirements.

California law requires any person, firm, or corporation to obtain a firearm manufacturer’s license from the California Department of Justice, and comply with specified laws governing licensed firearm manufacturers, in order to legally manufacture more than three firearms in the state in a calendar year, or to use a CNC milling machine¹³ or 3D-printer¹⁴ to manufacture any number of firearms.((See Cal. Pen Code § 29010 (as amended by 2022 CA AB 2156). For the purposes of this and other relevant gun safety laws, the term “firearm” is defined to include both a completed or unfinished frame or receiver (defined as a “firearm precursor part”).¹⁵ California law requires that people manufacturing or assembling guns without a manufacturer’s license do so for personal use only. Subject to narrow exceptions, it is unlawful for any person, corporation, or firm that is not a federally licensed firearms manufacturer to sell or transfer ownership of any fully assembled gun or completed frame or receiver, if that person, corporation, or firm:

• Manufactured or assembled the firearm;
• Knowingly caused the firearm to be manufactured or assembled by a person, corporation, or firm that is not a federally licensed firearms manufacturer; or
• Is aware that the firearm was manufactured or assembled by a person, corporation, or firm that is not a federally licensed firearms manufacturer.¹⁶

California’s law also makes it unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation to knowingly allow, facilitate, aid, or abet the manufacture or assembling of a firearm (including a completed frame or receiver) by a person who is legally disqualified from accessing firearms; or to knowingly manufacture or assemble, or knowingly cause, allow, facilitate, aid, or abet the manufacture or assembling of, a firearm that is not imprinted with a valid state or federal serial number.¹⁷ A separate but related law, effective January 1, 2023, makes it generally unlawful for any person within California to “manufacture or cause to be manufactured, distribute, transport, or import into the state, or cause to be distributed, transported, or imported into the state, keep for sale, offer or expose for sale, or give or lend” any firearm that does not have a serial number required by law, or which has had its serial number altered or obliterated.¹⁸

California law also prohibits anyone from altering or removing the name of the maker, model, manufacturer’s number, or other mark of identification, including any distinguishing number or mark assigned by DOJ on any firearm, without DOJ’s permission.¹⁹ Under California law, with certain limited exceptions, it is a misdemeanor to knowingly buy, receive, sell, or possess a firearm that has had the name of the maker or model, or the manufacturer’s number or other mark of identification, including any distinguishing number or mark assigned by the Department of Justice, changed, altered, removed, or obliterated.²⁰

Firearm Tracing & CA DOJ TRacing report

California law requires law enforcement agencies to report records to the CA Department of Justice Automated Firearms System (AFS) for each firearm that has been reported stolen, lost, found, recovered, held for safekeeping, or relinquished to the agency, within seven calendar days “after being notified of the precipitating event,”²¹ and a separate law similarly requires law enforcement agencies to report to the Department of Justice all available information necessary to identify and trace the history of all recovered firearms that are illegally possessed, have been used in a crime, or are suspected of having been used in a crime, within seven calendar days of obtaining the information; DOJ is required, in turn, to promptly forward this firearm tracing information to the federal ATF National Tracing Center.²²

In 2021, California enacted legislation, AB 1191, to require the California Department of Justice (CalDOJ) to regularly analyze firearm tracing data for patterns and trends relating to crime guns recovered by law enforcement that were illegally possessed, used in a crime, or suspected to have been used in a crime, including the leading sources and origins of those firearms. This legislation requires CalDOJ to submit a publicly available report to the Legislature by July 1, 2023, and annually thereafter, summarizing that firearm tracing analysis and including specific information “to the extent possible,” including all of the following:

•  The total number of crime guns recovered in the state.
• The number of crime guns recovered, disaggregated by county and by city.
•  The number of crime guns recovered, disaggregated by the firearms dealer where the most recent sale or transfer of the firearm occurred. This shall include the full name and address of the firearms dealer.
• The number of crime guns recovered, disaggregated by manufacturer.
• The total number of unserialized crime guns recovered in the state.²³

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1. See 2022 CA AB 2551; Cal. Penal Code §§ 29880; 30372.[↩]
2. Cal. Penal Code § 27515.[↩]
3. Cal. Penal Code § 27520(b).[↩]
4. Cal. Penal Code §§ 27520(b), 27510.[↩]
5. Cal. Penal Code §§ 27520(b), 27540.[↩]
6. Cal. Penal Code § 28465.[↩]
7. Cal. Penal Code § 27555. Shipments to or from entertainment firearms permit holders are exempt as long as the transfer involves the loan or return of a firearm used solely as a prop in a television, film, or theatrical production. Cal. Penal Code § 27835.[↩]
8. Cal. Penal Code § 27555.[↩]
9. Cal. Penal Code § 27555(c)(3).[↩]
10. Cal. Penal Code §§ 28225; 28235.[↩]
11. Cal. Penal Code § 27585.[↩]
12. All exceptions to this requirement are listed at Cal. Penal Code § 27585(b).[↩]
13. Cal. Pen Code § 29185(a).[↩]
14. For these purposes, a 3D-printer is defined in the law as “a computer-aided manufacturing device capable of producing a three-dimensional object from a three-dimensional digital model through an additive manufacturing process that involves the layering of two-dimensional cross sections formed of a resin or similar material that are fused together to form a three-dimensional object. Cal. Pen Code § 29010(b).[↩]
15. See Cal. Penal Code §§ 29010(b); 16520(b)(16). “Firearm precursor part” is defined in Cal. Penal Code § 16531.[↩]
16. Cal. Pen Code §§ 29181(d); 16520(g).[↩]
17. Cal. Pen Code §§ 29181(e), (f); 16520(g); 17312 (defining “Valid state or federal serial number or mark of identification”.[↩]
18. Cal. Bus. Prof. Code §§ 22949.62(a); 22949.61(f) (defining “unserialized firearm”). This prohibition also extends to the same conduct with any assault weapon or .50 MBG rifle.[↩]
19. Cal. Penal Code § 23900.[↩]
20. Cal. Penal Code § 23920. The exceptions to this requirement, including for acquisitions by peace officers and members of the military, are listed at Cal. Penal Code § 23925.[↩]
21. Cal. Pen Pen. Code 11108.2.[↩]
22. Cal. Pen Pen. Code 11108.3(a) – (c).[↩]
23. See Cal. Pen. Code 11108.3(e), (f) (added by 2021 CA AB 1191, Sec. 2.).[↩]