Skip to Main Content
Last updated .

Iowa generally prohibits private persons from knowingly possessing a machine gun.1

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, 1986.2 In December 2018, ATF finalized a rule to include bump stocks within the definition of a machine gun subject to this federal law, meaning that bump stocks will be generally banned as of March 26, 2019.3

 See our Machine Gun & Automatic Firearms policy summary for a comprehensive discussion of this issue. 

  1. Iowa Code §§ 724.1(7), 724.3. Iowa defines a “machine gun” as a firearm that “shoots or is designed to shoot more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” Iowa Code § 724.1(1).[]
  2. 18 U.S.C. § 922(o); 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d).[]
  3. Bump-Stock-Type Devices, 83 Fed. Reg. 66,514 (Dec. 26, 2018) (to be codified at 27 C.F.R. pts. 447, 478, 479).[]