When inheriting guns in Massachusetts, you have 60 days to either get licensed or lawfully hand them off. The 2024 firearms law cut that window down from the 180 days the old law gave heirs, and it removed the option of asking your police chief for extra time. Sixty days is what you get. Miss it, and keeping your father’s shotgun in your own living room becomes a criminal offense.
How the 60-Day Grace Period Works When Inheriting Guns in Massachusetts
The clock does not start when your relative dies. It starts when the firearm actually comes into your possession. If the estate takes four months to distribute, your 60 days begin the day you carry the gun home, not the day of the funeral.
During those 60 days you can possess the inherited firearms and ammunition without any license at all. You can also sell or transfer them inside that window. What you cannot do is treat the deadline as flexible. The law builds in no extension, and nothing lets a licensing authority grant you more time.
A second deadline runs alongside it. You have 60 days to register inherited firearms through the state’s MIRCS gun portal. Do not save that for day 59. The same law requires parties to a firearm transfer to report it within seven days, and the two provisions do not line up cleanly. Registering promptly avoids the argument entirely.
If You Want To Keep The Guns
Apply for your license the week you learn the guns are coming. An FID card covers rifles and shotguns that are not semiautomatic or large capacity. Anything else — handguns, semiautomatic rifles, large capacity firearms — requires a License to Carry. Inheriting your grandmother’s revolver does you no good if you hold only an FID.
Licensing takes time. Between the safety course, the application, fingerprinting, and your chief’s review, 60 days is tight.
If You Do Not Want Them
You have two routes. You can transfer any number of firearms to a licensed dealer, or to a museum or historical society. Or you can transfer up to four firearms per calendar year to a private individual who holds the right license. That four-per-year cap is real, so a large collection usually has to go through a dealer. Every transfer runs through the state portal.
Do not simply drive the guns to a shop on day 61. Possessing a firearm outside your home without a license carries an 18-month mandatory minimum sentence. Curing one problem by committing a worse one is a bad trade.
The Guns You May Not Be Able to Keep
The 60-day window excuses you from needing a license. It does not make a banned gun legal.
Massachusetts protects assault-style firearms only where the owner lawfully possessed the gun here on August 1, 2024 while holding a License to Carry, and then registered and serialized it. That protection attaches to that owner. The law does not say it passes to an heir. If your relative left you an AR-style rifle, talk to a lawyer before you take it. Penalties for a first offense start at a $1,000 fine and run to 10 years in prison.
Large capacity magazines work differently. Where they were lawfully possessed before September 13, 1994, the law specifically permits transferring them to an heir. Guns and magazines are not treated the same way here, and assuming otherwise cuts against you in both directions.
Does the November Ballot Question Change Any of This?
No. Question 9 asks voters whether to keep the 2024 firearms law. Until Election Day the law is fully in effect, and your 60 days do not pause while the Commonwealth votes.
Get Advice Before The Clock Runs Out
Inheriting a gun collection is one of the easier ways for a careful person to end up charged with a felony, usually months after a funeral nobody was thinking about paperwork at. If firearms were left to you and you are not sure what you are allowed to do with them, Matthew Peterson can walk you through the options — call or text 617-295-7500, or send us a message below. If you are already facing a firearms charge, the consultation is free.
