Connecticut bans assault weapons — and part of your catalog may not ship there

Connecticut bans the sale of firearms it classifies as assault weapons. There is no federal ban — the 1994 law expired in 2004 and was never renewed — so this is a state-level prohibition on part of your catalog. Federal law already routes every firearm sale through a licensed dealer, so the question in Connecticut is not how you ship but which of your products may be sold there at all. This page covers which items you must block from sale in Connecticut, what happens to customers who live there, and why an acquirer flags stores that do not control this.

What this means for your store

You cannot accept orders for assault weapons to Connecticut addresses. This is not a shipping block — it is a product block. A customer in Connecticut cannot buy a rifle you sell freely in other states, even if you wanted to work with a licensed dealer. You must identify which of your firearms fall under Connecticut's classification, then remove those products from sale in Connecticut entirely — either by disabling them for that state or by preventing checkout. If you sell nationwide without this control, you are currently accepting prohibited orders, which means you are in breach of Connecticut law and your processor is processing sales that violate it. That breach is what cuts off your payments. An existing customer in Connecticut who already owns a compliant firearm can still receive it under a lawful transfer, but you cannot sell them a new one that falls within the ban.

The control that actually enforces it

Federal law already requires all firearm sales to route through a licensed dealer — you are not shipping directly to customers. The state-level control sits upstream: you must block the prohibited products before they enter that pipeline. In Shopify, this lives in your markets settings — you can disable specific products or product types for the Connecticut market. You can also tag your inventory by classification and block tags at checkout using a Shopify app, or use product metafields to mark banned models and exclude them at the market level. What breaks if this is only in someone's head is that an order slips through, your processor sees it later and interprets it as intentional risk-taking, which triggers account review. Written control is what stops that.

Why an underwriter cares

An underwriter sees a store accepting orders for products that Connecticut law prohibits. That is not a product-category risk — it is a control risk. It looks like you either do not know the law or you know it and ignore it, both of which signal the processor will be liable for the sale. Acquirers do not care whether you intend to break the law; they care that you do not have the infrastructure to comply. Evidence of the control — market blocks, product tags, checkout logic — is what lets them trust you enough to process firearms at all. A store with no control cannot get underwritten, no matter how legitimate the business.

Frequently asked

Can I sell any firearms to Connecticut customers?

Only those that Connecticut law does not classify as assault weapons. You cannot sell anything in Connecticut that falls under the state's assault weapons ban, even if it is legal elsewhere. This is a hard block — not a shipping restriction you can work around. You must remove banned models from sale in Connecticut before accepting any order.

Do I need to check my product list against Connecticut's assault weapons classification?

Yes. Connecticut's classification is specific to certain models and features. You need to audit your catalog against that list and identify which of your firearms are prohibited. This is not something a processor or payment platform will do for you. Once you know which products are banned, block them from sale in Connecticut using Shopify markets or a similar control.

Will moving to a different payment processor let me sell banned firearms to Connecticut?

No. The prohibition is state law, not a processor rule. Any legitimate processor that accepts firearms will require the same control. Moving processors without fixing the product block will just cycle you to another account review. The solution is to comply with Connecticut law, not to find a processor that ignores it.