A Citizen's Guide to Federal Firearms Laws

National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action

A summary of federal restrictions on the purchase, sale, possession, and transportation of firearms and ammunition.
Caution: Firearm laws are subject to frequent change and court interpretation. This summary is not intended as legal advice or restatement of law. This summary does not include state or local laws, ordinances, or regulations. For any particular situation, a licensed local attorney must be consulted for an accurate interpretation.

Under federal law supported by the National Rifle Association, the use of a firearm in a violent or drug-trafficking crime is punishable by a mandatory prison sentence of up to 20 years. A second conviction, if the firearm is a machine gun or is equipped with a silencer, brings life imprisonment without release. Violating firearms laws should lead to very real punishment for violent criminals, but the laws first must be enforced.

Ineligible Persons
The following classes of people are ineligible to possess, receive, ship, or transport firearms or ammunition:

• Those convicted of crimes punishable by imprisonment for over one year, except state misdemeanors punishable by two years or less.
• Fugitives from justice.
• Unlawful users of certain depressant, narcotic, or stimulant drugs.
  
• Those adjudicated as mental defectives or incompetents or those committed to any mental institution.
• Illegal aliens.
• Citizens who have renounced their citizenship.
• Those persons dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces.
• Persons less than 18 years of age for the purchase of a shotgun or rifle.
• Persons less than 21 years of age for the purchase of a firearm that is other than a shotgun or rifle.
• Persons subject to a court order that restrains such persons from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner.
• Persons convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

 

Friday's 2nd Amendment Quote

"The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner. "

Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982)

Harry Browne's Wit & Wisdom

"The police can't stop an intruder, mugger, or stalker from hurting you. They can pursue him only after he has hurt or killed you. Protecting yourself from harm is your responsibility, and you are far less likely to be hurt in a neighborhood of gun owners than in one of disarmed citizens – even if you don't own a gun yourself. "

Harry Browne

A Kennedy Said What????

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."

John F. Kennedy

Patrick Henry on The Right to Bear Arms

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

Patrick Henry

Ted Nugent - 2nd Amendment Hero

NRA-ILA Grassroots Minute 07/02/09

Hitler's View on Gun Control

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! "

Adolph Hitler [1935] The Weapons Act of Nazi Germany.

Thomas Jefferson on the 2nd Amendment

"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."

Thomas Jefferson

2nd Amendment Quotes

“A well-crafted pepperoni pizza, being necessary to the preservation of a diverse menu, the right of the people to keep and cook tomatoes, shall not be infringed.” I would ask you to try to argue that this statement says that only pepperoni pizzas can keep and cook tomatoes, and only well-crafted ones at that. This is basically what the so-called states rights people argue with respect to the well-regulated militia, vs. the right to keep and bear arms. "

Bruce Tiemann

Kicking off Friday's 2nd Amendment Video With A Special Message From Chuck Norris

Friday's 2nd Amendment Quote

"This country was founded by religious nuts with guns."

P.J. O'Rourke

Friday's 2nd Amendment Quote

"Switzerland is a land where crime is virtually unknown, yet most Swiss males are required by law to keep in their homes what amounts to a portable, personal machine gun."

Tom Clancy

Friday's 2nd Amendment Quote

"[We] should not blame a gun itself for any crime or any acts of violence, any more than we can blame a pen for misspelling a word."

Senator Wallace F. Bennett (R-UT), Congressional Record, 5/16/68