Mississippi Gun Laws: Complete Guide

Private Sales and Transfers

• Mississippi does not require an occasional intrastate private sale to go through a dealer, but federal law forbids a transfer when the seller knows or has reasonable cause to believe the recipient is prohibited. A private seller should verify Mississippi residency because a transfer to a resident of another state ordinarily must be delivered through an FFL in the recipient's state. [9][11][16]
• State law also restricts selling, giving, or lending covered weapons to a person known to be intoxicated or a minor, and a parent, guardian, or custodian may not knowingly allow a child under eighteen to have, own, or carry a weapon covered by the concealed-weapon statute unless a statutory minor exception applies. Federal handgun-transfer rules impose additional limits on transfers to juveniles. Anyone repeatedly buying and reselling firearms for profit should determine whether federal dealer licensing is required. [9][5][11]

• Confirm Mississippi residency, identity, age, and eligibility. [9][11]
• Use an FFL whenever residency or eligibility is uncertain. [11]

Important notice: A voluntary bill of sale does not legalize an otherwise prohibited transfer. [11]

Buying a Firearm

• Mississippi requires no general purchase permit, waiting period, owner license, or registration. Dealers conduct the federal NICS process and federal dealer age limits apply. [9][13][12]
• A federally licensed dealer generally may transfer a rifle or shotgun to a buyer at eighteen, but may not transfer a handgun or another firearm to a person under twenty-one. The dealer must obtain the required identification and Form 4473, contact NICS unless a federal exception applies, and comply with federal interstate-sale rules; Mississippi's optional carry permit does not replace these purchase requirements. [12][13][1]
• Private acquisition is not a way around age or eligibility restrictions. Mississippi separately regulates weapons furnished to people under eighteen, and parents or guardians face liability for knowingly allowing a minor to possess covered weapons outside the statutory exceptions. [9][5]

Ownership and Prohibited Persons

• Mississippi generally prohibits firearm possession by a person convicted of a felony, while federal law separately covers categories such as qualifying felony convictions, certain domestic-violence convictions or restraining orders, unlawful controlled-substance use, and specified mental-health adjudications. A person must satisfy both state and federal law; eligibility to vote or hold another civil right does not by itself establish firearm eligibility. [9][16]
• Mississippi law provides limited routes for relief from the state felony-firearm disability, including a pardon and court-ordered relief or a certificate of rehabilitation under the applicable statute. The Parole Board's clemency rules expressly distinguish a pardon, which restores firearm rights, from a restoration of civil rights, which does not. Because federal consequences and out-of-state convictions can complicate the result, a person with a disqualifying history should obtain case-specific legal advice before possessing or purchasing a firearm. [9][15][16]
• Mississippi has no general extreme risk protection order procedure and requires no license merely to own an ordinary firearm. Other protective orders and criminal judgments can still produce state or federal possession restrictions. [9][16]

Concealed and Open Carry

• A person who may lawfully possess a firearm may carry a pistol or revolver without a permit when it is carried in a sheath, belt or shoulder holster, purse, handbag, satchel, other similar bag or briefcase, or fully enclosed case. Open carry is generally lawful because a weapon in a wholly or partially visible holster or carrying base is excluded from the statutory definition of concealed, but location and threatening-conduct rules still apply. [8][4]
• The optional DPS license remains useful for travel and for privileges that do not attach to unlicensed carry. Mississippi generally issues an individual permit to a qualified resident age twenty-one or older, with a narrower route for qualifying members or veterans of the Armed Forces who are at least eighteen; applicants undergo fingerprint-based state and federal background checks. A licensee must carry the permit and valid identification while carrying and display both on a law-enforcement officer's demand. [8][1]
• Mississippi recognizes a valid, unrevoked, unexpired carry license issued by another state, but the visitor must follow Mississippi location and carry rules. The enhanced endorsement requires qualifying Mississippi-approved training or specified military or law-enforcement documentation and expands access to some places barred to standard permit holders; it is not a blanket exemption from every prohibited or posted location. [6][3][2]

Self-Defense and the Castle Doctrine in Mississippi

• The Mississippi Constitution, Article 3, Section 12, protects the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of home, person, or property, or in aid of the civil power when legally summoned, while allowing the Legislature to regulate or forbid carrying concealed weapons. [18]
• Mississippi Code Section 97-3-15 defines justifiable homicide and use of defensive force, including lawful defense of one's own person or another person when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony or great personal injury and imminent danger of that design being accomplished, and defense against a person who manifestly intends or endeavors to commit a felony or do violence to person or property by unlawful entry. [19]
• Subsection (3) creates a rebuttable presumption that a person who uses defensive force reasonably feared imminent death, great bodily harm, or a felony being committed against them when the force is used against someone who unlawfully and forcibly entered, or was unlawfully and forcibly removing another against their will from, an occupied dwelling, vehicle, business, or workplace. Subsection (4) removes the duty to retreat for a person who is not the initial aggressor, is not otherwise engaged in unlawful activity, and is attacked in a place where they have a legal right to be. [19]

Important notice: Section 97-3-15(5) addresses civil exposure directly: a defendant previously adjudicated not guilty of a homicide or defensive-force charge under the statute's justification provisions is immune from a civil action arising from the same conduct and may recover attorney's fees, court costs, and lost income from a plaintiff who sues anyway, and the statute's presumptions also apply when self-defense or defense of another is raised in a civil case. That protection is tied to specific statutory conditions (it does not apply, for example, against a law-enforcement officer performing official duties) and normally follows a prior not-guilty adjudication rather than blocking a lawsuit from being filed in the first place. Every self-defense situation is fact-specific and high-stakes; get individualized legal advice before relying on any of this content in an actual confrontation. [19]

Transportation and Vehicles

• Mississippi's vehicle rule is broader than the listed methods for permitless carry on the person: a person over eighteen does not violate the concealed-weapon statute by carrying a firearm or deadly weapon within a motor vehicle. The occupant must still be legally eligible to possess it, and separate rules for schools, federal property, parks, and other restricted premises can affect where the vehicle may go. [4][6][9]
• State law generally prevents a public or private employer from adopting a policy that prohibits firearm transportation or storage in a locked vehicle in an employer-provided parking area. A private employer may impose a prohibition in a parking area whose public access is restricted by a gate, security station, or similar means, and separate state or federal location restrictions still apply. [10]
• For interstate travel, federal safe passage may protect transport between places where possession is lawful when the firearm is unloaded and neither the firearm nor ammunition is readily accessible from the passenger compartment; in a vehicle without a separate trunk, they must be in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console. That protection does not create a general right to carry at the destination or during unnecessary stops. [17]

Restricted Firearms and Magazines

• Mississippi has no general magazine limit or assault-weapon ban. NFA firearms are generally permitted when all federal registration, tax, and transfer requirements are satisfied. [9][10][14]
• State weapons provisions address items such as machine guns and silencers, but do not create a separate Mississippi registration system for federally lawful NFA firearms. Federal approval must be obtained before making or taking possession of a regulated item, and federal rules can also require advance approval before interstate movement of certain NFA firearms. [9][14]
• The absence of a feature or capacity ban does not override prohibited-person rules, carry-location restrictions, hunting regulations, or federal restrictions. A firearm's configuration should be checked before acquisition or modification because barrel length, automatic-fire capability, suppressor components, and similar characteristics can change its federal classification. [9][14][16]

Safe Storage and Reporting

• Mississippi has no universal statute requiring every ordinary firearm in a home or vehicle to be locked, and it sets no general statewide deadline for an ordinary owner to report a firearm lost or stolen. Those absences do not eliminate liability under generally applicable criminal law or any storage condition imposed by a court or other specific rule. [9][10]
• A parent, guardian, or custodian commits a misdemeanor by knowingly allowing a child under eighteen to have, own, or carry a covered weapon unless a statutory minor exception applies. Keeping firearms unloaded and locked, controlling ammunition and keys, and preventing unauthorized access are practical ways to avoid access even though Mississippi does not prescribe one universal storage method. [5][9]
• After a loss or theft, promptly contacting local law enforcement and providing the make, model, caliber, and serial number can support recovery and document that the owner no longer possesses the firearm. The recommendation is practical rather than a general Mississippi reporting mandate. [9]

Restricted Locations and Private Property

• A standard Mississippi permit does not authorize concealed carry in the locations listed by Section 45-9-101, including police or highway patrol stations, detention facilities, courthouses and courtrooms, polling places, government-body meetings, legislative meetings, non-firearm school or professional athletic events, bars or bar areas primarily devoted to on-premises alcohol consumption, educational facilities, churches and other places of worship, airport passenger terminals except an encased firearm being checked for lawful air travel, and places prohibited by federal law. Other statutes can independently regulate weapons on school or other property. [8][2]
• An enhanced-endorsed permit authorizes carry in many locations on the standard-permit list, including courthouses outside a courtroom during a judicial proceeding, but it does not authorize carry in a place of nuisance, a police, sheriff, or highway patrol station, or a detention facility, prison, or jail. A trial judge retains authority over the courtroom, and federal prohibitions remain controlling. [2][3]
• A person or entity controlling a location may prohibit pistols or revolvers by written notice clearly readable from at least ten feet away. DPS guidance states that enhanced carry does not authorize violation of such posted notice, so neither permitless carry nor an enhanced endorsement should be treated as permission to ignore an owner's restriction. [8][7]

State Preemption and Local Rules

• Mississippi broadly preempts counties and municipalities from regulating the possession, carrying, transportation, sale, transfer, or ownership of firearms and ammunition. Local governments therefore may not create a general local licensing, registration, magazine-capacity, or transfer system inconsistent with state law. [10]
• The preemption statutes preserve specific local powers. A county or municipality may regulate firearm discharge, use generally applicable zoning and business rules that do not target firearm businesses more restrictively than comparable businesses, control its employees' firearm possession in the course of employment, and regulate carry at listed public places or events within the limits set by state law. [10]
• Local rules for public parks, public meetings, political rallies, parades, and similar listed places are constrained by statutory protections for qualifying permit holders and other listed exceptions. Because discharge ordinances and property-specific rules remain possible, travelers should check the ordinance and the property's notices rather than assuming preemption makes every local rule invalid. [10]

Before Completing a Private Firearm Sale in Mississippi

• Confirm Mississippi residency, identity, age, and eligibility before a private transfer. [9][11]
• Use an FFL for interstate transfers or whenever eligibility is uncertain. [11]
• Use one of the statutorily listed carry methods when relying on permitless concealed carry. [8]
• Check whether a standard or enhanced permit changes the rule for each intended location. [2][3]
• Complete all federal requirements before possessing an NFA firearm. [14]
• Store firearms securely and keep serial-number records separately. [9]

Official Mississippi Firearm Law Resources

Mississippi Gun Law FAQ

Sources

1. 1. Mississippi Firearm PermitsMississippi Department of Public Safety. State agency. Accessed August 7, 2026.
2. 2. Mississippi Code Section 97-37-7Mississippi Department of Public Safety. State statute. Accessed August 7, 2026.
3. 3. Enhanced Carry EndorsementMississippi Department of Public Safety. State agency. Accessed August 7, 2026.
4. 4. Mississippi Code Section 97-37-1Mississippi Department of Public Safety. State statute. Accessed August 8, 2026.
5. 5. Mississippi Code Section 97-37-15Mississippi Department of Public Safety. State statute. Accessed August 8, 2026.
6. 6. Firearm Permit Frequently Asked QuestionsMississippi Department of Public Safety. State agency. Accessed August 8, 2026.
7. 7. Individual Firearm Permit InstructionsMississippi Department of Public Safety. State agency. Accessed August 8, 2026.
8. 8. Mississippi Code Sections 45-9-101 and 97-37-1Mississippi Legislature. State statute. Accessed August 9, 2026.
9. 9. Mississippi Code Title 97, Chapter 37Mississippi Legislature. State statute. Accessed August 9, 2026.
10. 10. Mississippi Code Sections 45-9-51 through 45-9-57Mississippi Legislature. State statute. Accessed August 9, 2026.
11. 11. Firearms Questions and Answers: Unlicensed PersonsBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Federal agency. Accessed August 7, 2026.
12. 12. Minimum Age for Gun Sales and TransfersBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Federal agency. Accessed August 7, 2026.
13. 13. National Instant Criminal Background Check SystemFederal Bureau of Investigation. Federal agency. Accessed August 7, 2026.
14. 14. National Firearms ActBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Federal agency. Accessed August 7, 2026.
15. 15. Mississippi Parole Board Rules: Executive ClemencyMississippi Secretary of State. State agency. Accessed August 9, 2026.
16. 16. 18 U.S.C. 922, Unlawful ActsOffice of the Law Revision Counsel. Federal statute. Accessed August 8, 2026.
17. 17. 18 U.S.C. 926A, Interstate Transportation of FirearmsOffice of the Law Revision Counsel. Federal statute. Accessed August 7, 2026.
18. 18. Mississippi Constitution, Article 3, Section 12State of Mississippi. State statute. Accessed August 13, 2026.
19. 19. Mississippi Code Section 97-3-15Mississippi Legislature. State statute. Accessed August 13, 2026.