Airsoft guns are not illegal in California. You can buy, own, and use them, but the state regulates them as “imitation firearms” and stacks several rules on top of federal law covering how the gun must look, where you can carry it visible, who you can sell it to, and how you can handle it in public. Break those rules and the penalties run from a $100 fine to mandatory jail time.
How California Classifies Airsoft Guns
California does not treat airsoft guns as firearms. They fall under two overlapping categories: “imitation firearms” under Penal Code 16700 and “BB devices” under Penal Code 16250.1California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 16250 A BB device is anything that expels a projectile by air, gas, or spring action. Airsoft guns specifically are BB devices firing 6mm or 8mm plastic projectiles.2California Legislative Information. California Code, Penal Code – PEN 16700
Because they are not firearms, you do not need to register an airsoft gun, pass a background check, or hold a firearms safety certificate to own one. What you do have to follow is a separate set of laws built around one goal: keeping the public and police from mistaking your airsoft gun for the real thing.
Markings You Cannot Remove
Federal law requires a blaze orange plug or marking at the muzzle, at least 6mm deep, permanently affixed.3Consumer Product Safety Commission. Toy, Look-Alike, and Imitation Firearm Business Guidance California adds more through SB 199, codified in Penal Code 16700. For 6mm and 8mm airsoft guns:
- Handguns need the federal orange barrel ring, a fully fluorescent trigger guard, and a two-centimeter fluorescent adhesive band wrapped around the pistol grip.
- Rifles and other long guns need the orange barrel ring, a fully fluorescent trigger guard, and fluorescent adhesive bands on two of the following: the pistol grip, the buttstock, or a protruding magazine.2California Legislative Information. California Code, Penal Code – PEN 16700
Retailers are supposed to apply these markings before sale. Once you own the gun, altering any of them is a misdemeanor. Penal Code 20150 makes it a crime to change, alter, remove, or obliterate any coloration or marking required for an imitation firearm, or to otherwise make it look more like a real gun.4California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 20150 Spray-painting the orange tip black, stripping the fluorescent bands, or “detailing” the gun for realism all fit. A narrow exception exists for theatrical and film productions.
Where You Can and Cannot Have It Visible
Penal Code 20170 prohibits openly displaying or exposing an imitation firearm in a public place.5California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 20170 The statute’s definition of “public place” is broad: streets, sidewalks, parks, parking lots, driveways, front yards, buildings open to the public, doorways, schools, and vehicles whether parked or moving. Intent doesn’t matter. Visibility is the trigger.
So carrying your airsoft gun uncased to your car, resting it on the dashboard, or letting a neighbor see it in your front yard all violate the statute on their face. Penalties escalate under Penal Code 20180: up to $100 for a first offense, up to $300 for a second, and a misdemeanor for the third and beyond, which carries up to six months in county jail and a $1,000 fine.
The Exceptions That Actually Matter
Penal Code 20175 lists the situations that fall outside the display ban:6California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 20175
- The gun is packaged or concealed so it isn’t subject to public viewing.
- Use at a certified or regulated sporting event or competition.
- Use or possession at a certified public or private shooting range.
- Commercial film, video, or stage productions.
- Selling, servicing, or repairing the device.
- Parades, reenactments, and color guards with government permits.
- Locations where discharging a real firearm is legal.
- The device’s entire exterior is a bright approved color (white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, or purple) or fully transparent.
Read that last one carefully. A federally compliant orange tip alone does not exempt the gun from California’s display ban. You need full bright coloring, full transparency, or one of the activity-based exceptions.
Transporting Your Airsoft Gun
The concealment exception is the practical rule for getting the gun from your home to a field or range. Keep it in a closed, opaque case, bag, or the original retail box so it cannot be seen. Since automobiles are listed as public places, a loose airsoft rifle visible on your back seat is a violation. Case it before you leave the house and don’t open the case until you are inside a legal use area. Pulling it out in the parking lot to show a friend counts as public display.
Backyards and Private Property
Your own property is generally fine for airsoft use, but if the device is visible from a public sidewalk or street, the display ban can still reach you. A privacy fence, an indoor space, or use out of sight of neighbors eliminates that risk.
Brandishing Carries Mandatory Jail Time
Pointing or displaying an airsoft gun in a threatening way is treated far more seriously than passive display. Penal Code 417.4 makes it a misdemeanor to draw or exhibit an imitation firearm in a threatening manner that causes a reasonable person to fear bodily harm, and it sets a floor of not less than 30 days in county jail.7California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 417.4 Jail is mandatory, not optional. The statute recognizes self-defense, but successfully defending a brandishing charge by arguing you used a plastic gun for protection is a difficult argument to make.
Charges can also stack. Point an airsoft gun with the orange tip painted over during a road-rage incident and you are looking at PC 20150 and PC 417.4 at minimum, and prosecutors may add assault charges if the victim believed the gun was real.
Buying, Selling, and Minors
Selling an airsoft gun to anyone under 18 is a misdemeanor under Penal Code 19910.8California Legislative Information. California Code, Penal Code – PEN 19910 The rule applies to retail stores, private sellers, and online transactions. The seller carries the burden of verifying age.
Minors are not banned from possessing airsoft guns. They can use them on private property, at organized fields, and at regulated ranges with appropriate supervision. But every other rule in this article applies to them the same as to adults. A teenager displaying an airsoft gun in a park faces the same statute as anyone else.
Parents carry a separate financial risk. Under Civil Code 1714.1, a parent or guardian is jointly liable for a minor’s willful misconduct that injures someone or damages property, up to a cap the Judicial Council adjusts every two years.9California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1714.1 As of July 2025, that cap is $56,400 per incident.10California Courts. Rules Effective July 1, 2025 – Appendix B Some California cities layer additional local rules on airsoft sales, particularly for online purchases, so check your municipal code before ordering.
Places That Are Off-Limits Even Though You Might Assume Otherwise
Schools of any kind are covered. Penal Code 20170 specifically lists public schools and public and private colleges and universities as public places where imitation firearm display is prohibited.5California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 20170 Penal Code 626.10 separately prohibits bringing instruments that expel metallic projectiles onto K-12 grounds, which targets metal-firing BB and pellet guns rather than plastic airsoft.11California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 626.10 Whichever section applies, do not bring an airsoft gun onto a campus. Officers responding to a call about a gun at a school will not stop to parse the caliber.
Game refuges and waterfowl refuges are also off-limits. The Fish and Game Code prohibits possessing BB devices in these protected areas, and airsoft guns qualify.12California Legislative Information. California Code, Fish and Game Code – FGC 10500 Bureau of Land Management public lands in California generally permit recreational shooting except where posted otherwise, subject to local rules for the specific parcel.13Bureau of Land Management. California Hunting, Fishing and Recreational Shooting
Penalties at a Glance
- Public display (PC 20170/20180): up to $100 for a first offense, up to $300 for a second, misdemeanor with up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for a third or subsequent offense.
- Brandishing (PC 417.4): misdemeanor with a mandatory minimum of 30 days in county jail.7California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 417.4
- Altering required markings (PC 20150): misdemeanor.4California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 20150
- Selling to a minor (PC 19910): misdemeanor.8California Legislative Information. California Code, Penal Code – PEN 19910
The through-line in every one of these rules is confusion with a real firearm. Keep the markings intact, keep the gun cased in public, use it only on private property or in one of the specifically exempted venues, and never point it at another person outside a sanctioned game. Follow those four practices and California’s airsoft laws largely leave you alone.