Sponsors (194)
Official title: To regulate assault weapons, to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 30, 2025 by Lucy Mcbath · Last progress April 30, 2025
The bill aims to reduce mass‑shooting lethality and strengthen enforcement by broadly restricting semiautomatic 'assault' weapons, large‑capacity magazines, and related parts while creating compliance pathways and buy‑backs — but it imposes significant costs, new criminal penalties, and regulatory burdens on lawful owners, businesses, and local governments and raises rights and fairness concerns due to exemptions for many government actors.
General public, students, and communities — reduced availability of semiautomatic 'assault' weapons and large‑capacity magazines, which is likely to lower mass‑shooting lethality and improve public safety.
All Americans and state/local prosecutors — clearer, standardized federal definitions and lists for assault weapons and banned parts, making enforcement, investigations, and prosecutions more consistent across jurisdictions.
People who already lawfully own covered firearms — ability to keep grandfathered, pre‑existing non‑exempt firearms subject to conditions (registration, transfer rules, or secure storage), avoiding immediate blanket confiscation for many owners.
Lawful gun owners (millions) — may incur substantial out‑of‑pocket costs and inconvenience to divest, register, modify, securely store, or turn in grandfathered or newly covered firearms and magazines.
Individuals who possess newly covered firearms or make transfer mistakes — face new and expanded criminal penalties and the risk of federal prosecution and prison time for violations.
Civilians and owners — perceived or real restrictions on rights and unequal treatment because broad prohibitions apply to private owners while many government and law‑enforcement actors retain exemptions.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Bans manufacture, import, sale, transfer, and possession of specified semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, adds penalties, transfer rules, and funds buy‑back grants.
Prohibits the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer, and possession in interstate or foreign commerce of a broad, newly defined category of "semiautomatic assault weapons" and of large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, while creating limited exemptions and grandfathering certain pre‑existing firearms. It also adds related criminal penalties, expands an existing firearms-penalty cross-reference, requires licensed facilitation for private transfers of grandfathered assault weapons after 90 days, and authorizes Byrne grant funding for state and local buy‑back programs. The bill defines many weapon categories and features (including an extensive enumerated list of models and feature-based definitions), sets possession/transfer prohibitions with enumerated exceptions for law enforcement, certain federal/state entities, antiques, and other narrow categories, and provides a severability clause. It also updates criminal penalty cross‑references so violations are subject to specified § 924 penalties and authorizes federal grant support for surrender/compensation programs for surrendered weapons and magazines.