New York penalizes any person who possesses any machine gun or any other firearm or weapon simulating a machine gun and which is adaptable for such use.¹ It also penalizes any person who manufactures or causes to be manufactured, transports, ships, or disposes of any machine gun.² A “machine gun” is defined as “a weapon of any description, irrespective of size, by whatever name known, loaded or unloaded, from which a number of shots or bullets may be rapidly or automatically discharged from a magazine with one continuous pull of the trigger and includes a sub-machine gun.”³

The presence in any room, dwelling, structure, or vehicle of any machine gun is presumptive evidence of its unlawful possession by all persons occupying the place where such machine gun is found.⁴

A person who possesses any machine gun as an executor, administrator, or any other lawful possessor of such property of a decedent must deliver the machine gun to an appropriate official or to the superintendent of state police within 15 days.⁵

New York also prohibits “rapid-fire modification devices” and “pistol converters” that increase the rate of fire of a semi-automatic firearm.⁶ These prohibited devices include bump stocks, the devices used in the shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas on 1 October, 2017, as well as other devices that accelerate the rate of fire through other means, including trigger cranks, binary trigger systems, and burst trigger systems.⁷

Federal law requires machine guns to be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF), and generally prohibits the transfer or possession of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986.⁸

 See our Machine Guns policy summary  for a comprehensive discussion of this issue. 

1. N.Y. Penal Law §§ 265.02(2) and (3).[↩]
2. N.Y. Penal Law §§ 265.10(1), (2), (3) and (6).[↩]
3. N.Y. Penal Law § 265.00(1).[↩]
4. N.Y. Penal Law § 265.15(1).[↩]
5. Such officer must hold it and thereafter deliver it on the written request of the executor, administrator, or other lawful possessor of such property to a named person, provided such named person is licensed to or is otherwise lawfully permitted to possess the same. If no request to deliver the machine gun is received within one year of the delivery, such official must dispose of it. N.Y. Penal Law § 265.20(1)(f).[↩]
6. N.Y. Penal Law §§ 265.00(36), 265.20(2).[↩]
7. N.Y. Penal Law § 265.00(26).[↩]
8. 18 U.S.C. § 922(o); 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d).[↩]