Firearms Law: Federal Regulation, State Permitting, and the Second Amendment

Summary. Who may possess a firearm, how lawful transfers work, what the separate registration regime covers, what the Constitution now requires, and how rights are lost and restored.

Part I: Three regimes at once

An American who owns a firearm is regulated by three separate systems that do not always fit together.

The Gun Control Act, whose definitions appear at 18 U.S.C. § 921 and whose prohibitions appear at 18 U.S.C. § 922, governs who may possess firearms, who may sell them, and how transfers occur. Licensing is at 18 U.S.C. § 923, penalties at 18 U.S.C. § 924, and the implementing regulations at 27 C.F.R. part 478.

The National Firearms Act is a separate, older regime that taxes and registers a narrow set of categories defined at 26 U.S.C. § 5845 — machineguns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors, destructive devices, and "any other weapons." Its prohibitions appear at 26 U.S.C. § 5861, and the regulations at 27 C.F.R. part 479.

State law does the rest, and the variance is enormous: permits to purchase, permits to carry, registration, waiting periods, magazine and feature restrictions, storage requirements, transport rules, and reporting obligations differ so widely that conduct entirely lawful in one state is a felony a few hours' drive away.

The practical consequence is that a person who complies with federal law may still be committing a serious state offense, and vice versa. Both must be checked, and the state check must be done for every state involved — where the firearm is bought, where the owner lives, and every state through which it travels.

Part II: Who may not possess a firearm

18 U.S.C. § 922(g) lists the categories of persons prohibited from shipping, transporting, possessing, or receiving firearms or ammunition. The list is longer than most people realize, and several categories catch people who have no idea they are prohibited:

Felons — anyone convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment exceeding one year. The maximum possible sentence controls, not the sentence imposed, which means a probationary sentence on a felony still prohibits.
Fugitives from justice.
Unlawful users of, or persons addicted to, controlled substances — a category that includes users of marijuana, including in states where it is lawful under state law, because federal law controls. This is the most commonly misunderstood prohibitor in the country.
Persons adjudicated mentally defective or committed to a mental institution — adjudication or commitment, not treatment or diagnosis.
Certain unlawfully present and nonimmigrant aliens.
Persons dishonorably discharged.
Persons who renounced United States citizenship.
Persons subject to a qualifying domestic violence restraining order, entered after notice and a hearing, with specific findings.
Persons convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence — a lifetime prohibition arising from a misdemeanor, which surprises nearly everyone it affects.

Two features make this list dangerous in practice. First, possession is a strict-liability-adjacent offense: the prohibition attaches to the status, and a prohibited person who takes a hunting rifle from a relative's closet for an afternoon has committed a federal felony. Second, several prohibitors arise from proceedings — a protective order, a misdemeanor plea — where nobody involved mentioned firearms.

Ammunition counts too. The statute prohibits possession of ammunition on the same terms as firearms, which is routinely overlooked.

And the criminal-case implication is severe. Anyone pleading to a domestic violence misdemeanor, accepting a protective order, or entering a plea to any offense punishable by more than a year should be told, on the record, what it does to their firearms rights. See Expungement, Record Sealing, and Restoring Rights After a Conviction and Domestic Violence and Protective Orders.

Part III: How transfers work

Licensed dealers. A person "engaged in the business" of dealing in firearms must obtain a federal firearms license under 18 U.S.C. § 923. Licensees must maintain records, run background checks, report multiple handgun sales, and submit to inspection.

The line between a private seller and an unlicensed dealer has been the subject of significant regulatory attention, and the statutory definition now turns on whether a person devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade predominantly to earn a profit. Selling a few personal firearms is not dealing; buying and reselling for profit is, and the boundary is where people get into trouble without intending to.

The background check. A licensee must run a check through the federal system before transferring a firearm to a non-licensee. The system returns a proceed, a denial, or a delay; after a statutory period a delayed transaction may proceed at the dealer's discretion, subject to state law that may say otherwise.

Interstate rules. A non-licensee generally may not acquire a firearm from a resident of another state directly. Handguns must be transferred through a licensee in the buyer's state of residence. Long guns may in many circumstances be purchased from a licensee in another state, provided the sale complies with the laws of both states.

Straw purchases. Buying a firearm on behalf of another person, and stating on the transfer form that you are the actual buyer, is a federal felony. This is true even where the actual buyer is not prohibited, and the form says so in plain language. It is also true of a well-intentioned purchase as a surprise gift, which is a distinction that catches people — buying a firearm as a genuine, unconditional gift is permitted; buying one with money the recipient provided, for the recipient, is not.

Private transfers. Federal law permits transfers between residents of the same state without a background check, subject to the transferor not knowing or having reasonable cause to believe the recipient is prohibited. Many states require private transfers to go through a licensee, and where they do, an informal sale is a state offense.

Records and the trace. Licensees maintain the transfer records that support tracing. There is no federal registry of firearms owned by individuals, and the statute expressly restricts the creation of one — a fact frequently misunderstood in both directions.

Part IV: The registered categories

The National Firearms Act does not prohibit the items it covers. It taxes and registers them, and possession of an unregistered covered item is a serious felony under 26 U.S.C. § 5861.

The categories, defined at 26 U.S.C. § 5845: machineguns; short-barreled rifles; short-barreled shotguns; suppressors (silencers); destructive devices; and "any other weapons."

The transfer process requires an application, a tax payment, fingerprints and photographs, notification to the chief local law enforcement officer, a background check, and approval before the item may be transferred. Possession before approval is the offense, and the wait can be lengthy.

Two structural points:

New machineguns are unavailable to civilians. Transfers are limited to those lawfully possessed and registered before a 1986 cutoff, which is why the price of a transferable machinegun bears no relation to its manufacturing cost.
State law may prohibit categories federal law permits. Several states ban suppressors, short-barreled rifles, or both, entirely. Federal approval is not permission under state law.

Constructive possession is the trap that catches otherwise careful owners: possessing the parts to assemble a regulated item, together with a firearm that could accept them, can constitute possession of the regulated item. The doctrine is real and it is enforced.

And the definitional questions matter enormously. In Garland v. Cargill, the Supreme Court held that a bump stock is not a "machinegun" under the statutory definition, because a semiautomatic rifle equipped with one does not fire more than one shot by a single function of the trigger. The decision is a reminder that in this field, the statutory definitions do the work, and an agency's reinterpretation of a definition is subject to ordinary judicial review of what the statute says.

Part V: The Second Amendment, in three cases and a fourth

District of Columbia v. Heller held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia, and to use arms for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense in the home. It struck down a handgun ban and a requirement that firearms be kept inoperable.

It also stated the right is not unlimited, and identified as "presumptively lawful" such measures as prohibitions on possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws forbidding carry in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, and conditions on the commercial sale of arms.

McDonald v. City of Chicago held the right applies against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen did two things. It held that the right extends outside the home, striking down a permitting scheme requiring an applicant to demonstrate a special need. And it replaced the two-step interest-balancing framework the lower courts had developed with a text, history, and tradition test: where the Amendment's plain text covers the conduct, the government must justify the regulation by showing it is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.

United States v. Rahimi then clarified how that test operates, upholding the prohibition on possession by a person subject to a domestic violence restraining order containing a finding of a credible threat. The Court emphasized that the historical inquiry asks whether the challenged regulation is relevantly similar in why and how it burdens the right — not whether a historical twin exists — and that the tradition permits disarming individuals found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another.

And Caetano v. Massachusetts held that the Amendment is not limited to weapons in existence at the founding, vacating a decision upholding a stun gun ban.

What this means practically. An enormous volume of litigation is now working through the historical inquiry, and the answers are unsettled: on assault weapon and magazine restrictions, on categories of prohibited persons beyond those Heller identified, on permitting conditions, and on the scope of "sensitive places." A practitioner should assume the law in this area will change, verify current authority in the relevant circuit, and not rely on a case that is more than a year or two old without checking it.

Part VI: State permitting and carry

Purchase. Some states require a permit or license to purchase, a waiting period, a state background check in addition to the federal one, or registration of the firearm.

Carry. Most states now issue carry permits on a shall-issue basis, and a substantial number permit carry without any permit — but permitless carry does not eliminate the prohibited-person rules, the sensitive-places restrictions, or the reciprocity problem.

Reciprocity is the recurring practical difficulty. Whether a permit is honored in another state depends on that state's law and any agreement, and it changes. A permit is not a passport, and a lawful carrier who crosses a state line without checking has committed a serious offense in several jurisdictions.

Sensitive places. Schools, courthouses, government buildings, airports beyond the security checkpoint, federal facilities, and — depending on the state — bars, hospitals, polling places, houses of worship, and public transit. Private property owners may generally prohibit carry, with the consequence of a violation varying from trespass to a criminal offense.

Transport. A federal safe-passage provision protects a person transporting a firearm, unloaded and inaccessible, between two places where possession is lawful. It is a defense, not a shield from arrest, and its protections have been construed narrowly in some jurisdictions. Anyone driving across states should research each state's rules and follow the strictest.

Storage. A growing number of states require secure storage, particularly where minors are present, with criminal liability for a violation resulting in access by a prohibited person or a child.

Other state variations include magazine capacity limits, feature-based restrictions on particular rifles, ammunition purchase permits and background checks, reporting of lost or stolen firearms, and waiting periods.

Part VII: Extreme risk protection orders

Most states now have some form of extreme risk protection order — commonly called a red flag law — permitting a court to order the temporary surrender of firearms from a person found to pose a significant risk of harm to self or others.

The structure is consistent: a petition, typically by law enforcement and in many states by family or household members; an ex parte order on a showing of immediate danger, effective for a short period; a hearing within days, with notice and an opportunity to be heard; and, if granted, an order for a defined term with a mechanism for renewal and for termination.

For a respondent, three points matter most:

Appear at the hearing. The ex parte order is temporary; the hearing decides the longer term, and non-appearance produces a default.
The order triggers the federal prohibition during its term, and violating it is a federal offense as well as a state one.
Surrender is generally required, and the mechanics — to whom, on what timeline, and how firearms are returned — are specified by statute. Transferring firearms to a friend to avoid surrender is frequently itself an offense.

These orders sit alongside domestic violence protective orders, which have their own federal prohibitor under 18 U.S.C. § 922 — the provision upheld in Rahimi.

Part VIII: Losing and restoring rights

Losing them is easy and often invisible. A felony conviction, a domestic violence misdemeanor, a qualifying protective order, an adjudication of mental incompetence, or a drug-use finding all prohibit — and in most of those proceedings nobody mentions firearms.

Restoration is harder and depends entirely on the route:

State restoration. Where a state conviction is expunged, set aside, or pardoned, or where civil rights are restored, federal law may no longer treat the conviction as disqualifying — but only if the restoration does not expressly provide that the person may not possess firearms. The details matter enormously and vary by state.
Federal convictions have historically had a much narrower path, with the administrative relief provision unfunded for many years.
Mental health prohibitors may be lifted through state relief-from-disabilities programs meeting federal standards.
Protective orders and extreme risk orders end by their terms or on successful termination.
Correction of records. Where a background check denial rests on an inaccurate or incomplete record, there is an administrative process to correct it — and errors are common, particularly with common names and with dispositions never reported to the databases.

The practical advice for anyone in this position: determine the exact basis of the prohibition first, because the route depends entirely on it, and a general "can I get my rights back" question has no general answer. See Clearing Your Criminal Record.

Part IX: Five situations

The plea nobody explained

A defendant accepts a misdemeanor domestic violence plea to resolve a case, receives no jail time, and pays a fine. Nobody mentions firearms.

He is now prohibited for life under 18 U.S.C. § 922 — from possessing any firearm or ammunition, anywhere, permanently, on the basis of a misdemeanor.

What should have happened. Defense counsel should have determined whether the offense qualifies (an element involving the use or attempted use of physical force or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, by a person in a qualifying relationship), advised on the consequence before the plea, and explored alternatives — a plea to a non-qualifying offense, a deferred disposition, or a diversion program.

What can be done now: identify the exact statute of conviction and whether it actually qualifies; determine whether the state offers expungement, set-aside, or restoration of civil rights, and whether that relief removes the federal disability; and — if firearms are in the home — address possession immediately, because constructive possession of a spouse's firearms in a shared residence is a real exposure.

The general lesson for criminal practice: the firearms consequence should be on the record in every plea colloquy involving a domestic violence allegation or any offense punishable by more than a year. See Clearing Your Criminal Record.

The medical marijuana patient with a gun safe

A patient in a state with a lawful medical program owns firearms and answers the transfer form honestly.

Two federal problems. Possession by an unlawful user of a controlled substance is prohibited, and marijuana remains a controlled substance federally regardless of state law. And answering "no" to the drug-use question on the transfer form while using is a false statement on the form, itself a felony.

The practical position is genuinely difficult, and honest advice acknowledges it: there is no federal exception for state-lawful use, litigation challenging the prohibitor's application to marijuana users is ongoing with mixed results, and a person cannot lawfully do both under current federal law.

What a lawyer can actually say: the risk is real and the choice belongs to the client; do not answer the form falsely under any circumstances; do not assume a state program card creates any federal protection; and watch this area, because it is among the most actively litigated questions under the historical-tradition framework.

The estate with a gun safe

An executor opens a safe containing a dozen firearms, including one with a suppressor.

Ordinary firearms generally pass to heirs, and federal law contains a provision facilitating transfers to a lawful heir — but the recipient must not be a prohibited person, the state's rules apply, and an interstate transfer to an out-of-state heir generally must go through a licensee in the heir's state.

The suppressor is a different problem. It is a registered item under 26 U.S.C. § 5845. A transfer to a lawful heir uses a specific tax-exempt application and requires approval before transfer of possession. The executor may hold it in the estate's capacity in the interim; handing it to a family member before approval is a felony.

And check state law. Several states prohibit suppressors entirely, in which case the item cannot lawfully go to an heir in that state and must be transferred out of state to a lawful recipient, sold to a dealer, or surrendered.

The executor's sequence: secure the safe; inventory with serial numbers; confirm no heir is prohibited; determine the state rules for each recipient's state; use a licensee for interstate transfers; file the tax-exempt application for any registered item and wait for approval; and where an heir is prohibited or the item is unlawful in their state, arrange a lawful sale or surrender.

See Administering an Estate.

The road trip

A permit holder drives from a permissive state to a restrictive one for a family visit, with a handgun and standard magazines.

Three separate exposures. The carry permit may not be honored — reciprocity changes and is the traveler's responsibility to verify. The magazines may exceed a capacity limit in a state along the route. And the firearm itself may be restricted by feature-based rules.

The federal safe-passage provision protects transport, unloaded and inaccessible, between two places where possession is lawful — but it is a defense, not immunity from arrest, it has been construed narrowly in some jurisdictions, and it does not protect a stop that is not merely incidental to the journey.

Practical rules for traveling:

Check every state on the route, not just the destination.
Follow the strictest rule on the itinerary.
Transport unloaded, in a locked container, not in the passenger compartment where the vehicle permits.
Ammunition separate.
Do not rely on a permit you have not verified is honored this month.
Flying: declare at check-in, unloaded, in a locked hard case, in checked baggage only, with ammunition packed as the carrier requires — and know that carrying at an airport beyond the checkpoint is a federal offense and is the single most common way otherwise law-abiding travelers are arrested.

The garage build

An enthusiast assembles a rifle from parts, including a short barrel he plans to install "eventually," and keeps everything in the same cabinet.

This is constructive possession, and it is the trap that catches careful people. Possessing the components to assemble a regulated item, together with a firearm that can accept them, can constitute possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle — a felony under 26 U.S.C. § 5861.

The rules that avoid it: do not possess a short barrel and a receiver that would accept it unless the configuration is registered or an exception plainly applies; file and wait for approval before acquiring the parts, not after; keep documentation of any lawful alternative configuration; and understand that the analysis looks at what could readily be assembled, not at intentions.

And the broader point about building. Manufacturing a firearm for personal use has historically been permitted federally, subject to significant qualifications — it may not be a regulated item without registration and approval, it may not be made for sale without a license, several states regulate or prohibit it and require serialization, and the definitional questions surrounding partially complete receivers have been the subject of intense regulatory and judicial attention. Verify current federal and state law before making anything, because this is among the fastest-moving corners of the field.

Part X: Dealers, ranges, and businesses

Anyone operating a firearms business faces a compliance regime with unusually severe consequences for paperwork.

Getting licensed. Application under 18 U.S.C. § 923, with fingerprints and photographs, an interview, premises requirements, and — critically — compliance with state and local law including zoning, which a federal license does not override.

Running the business. The obligations under 27 C.F.R. part 478 are detailed and unforgiving:

The acquisition and disposition record, maintained accurately and currently.
The transfer form for every transaction, completed correctly, retained, and — a recurring enforcement issue — checked for errors before the firearm leaves.
Background checks, with documented results.
Multiple handgun sale reports, and reports of certain multiple rifle sales in some jurisdictions.
Theft and loss reporting within the required period.
Trace responses within the required time.
Secure storage and inventory reconciliation.

Inspections. Licensees are subject to compliance inspection, and willful violations can cost the license. The recurring findings are unsurprising and avoidable: incomplete forms, missing responses, transfers to prohibited persons, failure to run or document checks, inventory discrepancies, and record-keeping gaps.

Liability exposure. Federal law provides broad protection against liability for the criminal misuse of a lawfully sold firearm, subject to enumerated exceptions — including negligent entrustment and knowing violations of statutes applicable to the sale or marketing where the violation proximately caused the harm. Those exceptions are where the litigation is, and state consumer protection and public nuisance theories have been developed to fit through them. Careful sales practices — refusing a sale where indicators of a straw purchase are present, documenting the refusal, and training staff — are both compliance and defense.

Ranges and instruction. Waivers, premises liability, lead exposure and environmental compliance, noise, and zoning are the recurring issues, along with the question of who may lawfully handle a rental firearm.

And a note for gunsmiths and manufacturers. The license type matters, manufacturing carries excise tax obligations, and modifying a firearm into a regulated configuration for a customer requires the same registration and approval as anything else. Doing the work before approval is the offense.

Part XI: Safe storage, prevention, and liability

The single largest source of firearms in criminal hands is theft from lawful owners, and the single most common firearm death is suicide. Both are addressed by the same practice, which is why storage is where law and prudence converge.

Legal obligations, increasingly:

Secure storage statutes, particularly where minors are present, with criminal liability for a violation resulting in access.
Child access prevention laws, imposing liability where a child gains access to an unsecured firearm.
Reporting of lost or stolen firearms within a stated period, required in a number of states.
Storage requirements attached to permits in some jurisdictions.

Practical measures, in descending order of effect:

A safe or lockbox, bolted down, with firearms unloaded and ammunition stored separately.
Locking devices on each firearm.
An inventory with serial numbers and photographs, stored off-site — essential for recovery after theft and for an estate.
Recording serial numbers with law enforcement where a program exists, which materially improves recovery.
Temporary out-of-home storage during a period of crisis. Many jurisdictions permit voluntary storage with a licensed dealer, a range, or in some states law enforcement, and several have created voluntary do-not-sell registries a person may join. This is the most underused tool in the field, and it is available to a family without any court proceeding.

When someone in the household is in crisis, the options in ascending order of formality are: voluntary temporary transfer to a lawful third party or storage facility (checking that the transfer itself is lawful in the state); a voluntary do-not-sell listing; and an extreme risk protection order, which is a court proceeding with due process protections and a defined term.

And for anyone advising a family: the conversation is more effective when framed around temporary storage during a difficult period than around permanent dispossession, and the practical obstacles — where to store, whether the transfer is lawful, how to get them back — have answers that a lawyer or a dealer can supply in ten minutes.

Part XII: Practical points

Check both federal and state law, for every state involved. Lawful conduct in one state is a felony in another.
Know the prohibitors, including the ones people miss: the maximum-sentence rule, the marijuana rule, the domestic violence misdemeanor, and ammunition.
Never buy for someone else. A straw purchase is a felony even where the recipient is not prohibited.
Do not possess a regulated item before approval, and beware constructive possession of the parts.
Store securely. It is increasingly a legal obligation as well as a sensible one, and it prevents the theft that puts firearms into criminal hands.
Verify reciprocity before crossing a state line, every time.
Report theft promptly; several states require it, and it matters for tracing.
In any criminal or protective order proceeding, ask what it does to firearms rights — before the plea, not after.
Verify current law. This area is changing rapidly under the historical-tradition framework.

Part XIII: How the historical-tradition test is actually applied

Because Bruen replaced a familiar framework with an unfamiliar one, and because Rahimi then clarified it, it is worth setting out how the analysis proceeds in practice.

Step one: does the Amendment's plain text cover the conduct? This asks whether the person is among "the people," whether the item is an "arm," and whether the conduct is "keeping" or "bearing." If the answer is no, the inquiry ends.

Step two: is the regulation consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation? The burden is on the government. And Rahimi made three clarifications that materially changed how lower courts approach it:

A historical twin is not required. The question is whether the modern regulation is relevantly similar to historical practice — analogous, not identical.

The comparison is about "why" and "how." Why does the regulation burden the right (what problem does it address), and how does it burden it (what does it actually do to the person regulated)? A modern law addressing a comparable problem in a comparable way is consistent with tradition even if the historical analogues were differently drawn.

Principles, not statutes, carry forward. The Court identified in surety and going-armed laws a principle — that an individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed — and reasoned from the principle rather than from the details of the historical measures.

What remains genuinely unsettled, and where the litigation is concentrated:

Categorical prohibitions beyond those Heller called presumptively lawful — including as applied to non-violent felons and to unlawful drug users.
Feature-based restrictions on particular rifles and magazine capacity limits, where the argument turns on whether the items are in common use for lawful purposes and on what tradition permits.
Sensitive places, and how far the category extends beyond schools and government buildings.
Permitting conditions — training requirements, fees, character references, waiting periods — which Bruen did not disturb in shall-issue form but which are being tested at the margins.
Age-based restrictions.
The evidentiary practice itself: which historical period counts, how much evidence suffices, and what role historians play at trial.

For a practitioner, the working advice is unglamorous. Identify the circuit's current authority on the specific regulation at issue; expect it to have changed recently; build the historical record in the district court, because appellate courts are now deciding these cases on records that must contain the historical evidence; and do not advise a client to act on a constitutional theory that has not yet been adopted in their jurisdiction — the consequence of being right two years early is a felony conviction.

Part XIV: Where the penalties come from

The reason care matters in this field is that the penalties are severe and frequently mandatory, and they attach to conduct that does not feel criminal.

18 U.S.C. § 924 supplies most of them, and three features drive outcomes:

Possession by a prohibited person is a felony carrying a substantial statutory maximum, with a much higher mandatory minimum for a person with the requisite prior violent felony or serious drug offense convictions. A single afternoon's possession by a person who did not know they were prohibited is charged the same as any other.

Using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence or a drug trafficking crime carries a consecutive mandatory sentence that stacks on top of the underlying offense and escalates by the type of weapon and by the conduct — brandishing, discharging — and by prior convictions under the same provision. This provision drives a very large share of federal sentences.

False statements on the transfer form are separately punishable, which is why the straw purchase question is not a technicality.

And the registration offenses under 26 U.S.C. § 5861 — possessing, transferring, or making an unregistered regulated item — are felonies in their own right, with constructive possession supplying the theory in cases where nobody intended to assemble anything.

The state layer adds its own offenses for carrying without a permit, carrying in a prohibited place, magazine and feature violations, unlawful transfer, failure to secure, and failure to report — with penalties ranging from an infraction to a serious felony depending on the state.

Three practical implications:

Ignorance of the prohibitor is not a defense to possession, so the burden of knowing one's own status falls on the individual. Anyone with any criminal history, any protective order, any commitment history, or any drug use should determine their status affirmatively rather than assume.
The stakes make guessing irrational. The cost of an hour of legal advice is trivial against a felony conviction that is itself a lifetime prohibitor.
In any criminal or family proceeding, the firearms consequence should be identified before disposition — by defense counsel, by family counsel, and ideally on the record by the court.

Frequently asked questions

Can I possess a firearm if I use marijuana lawfully under state law? No. Federal law prohibits possession by an unlawful user of a controlled substance, and marijuana remains one federally regardless of state law.

Does a felony conviction with probation still prohibit me? Yes. The prohibition turns on the maximum possible sentence, not the sentence imposed.

Can I buy a firearm as a gift? A genuine, unconditional gift is permitted. Buying with the recipient's money, for the recipient, is a straw purchase and a felony.

Is there a national firearms registry? No. Federal law restricts the creation of one; licensed dealers maintain transfer records used for tracing.

Does my carry permit work in other states? Only where that state honors it. Reciprocity changes, and it is your responsibility to check before crossing.

What did Bruen change? It extended the right outside the home and replaced interest balancing with a text, history, and tradition test — which Rahimi clarified asks whether a regulation is relevantly similar in why and how it burdens the right, not whether a historical twin exists.