Sponsors (43)
The bill tightens federal definitions, creates new criminal prohibitions and registration/transfer rules while funding buybacks and reporting to reduce assault-weapon availability and improve enforcement transparency, at the cost of new burdens, compliance costs, and criminal exposure for many owners, dealers, and enforcement agencies.
General public and communities: clearer federal definitions, expanded penalties, registration, and buyback funding are likely to reduce availability of defined semiautomatic assault weapons and deter illegal possession/use.
Owners of grandfathered firearms: people who lawfully possessed covered weapons before enactment can retain them if they comply with registration, storage, and transfer rules, preserving continued legal ownership subject to conditions.
Law enforcement, courts, and the public: clearer statutory definitions plus DOJ reporting improve enforcement, prosecution clarity, and transparency about registrations, seizures, and prosecutions.
Owners, dealers, and others: the bill creates new federal crimes and raises penalties for possession, manufacture, sale, and transfer of many semiautomatic firearms and high-capacity magazines, increasing risk of imprisonment and fines for noncompliance.
Private owners and households: registration, mandatory safe‑storage rules, limits on access, and broadened seizure/forfeiture authority will restrict how many owners keep and use firearms at home and increase regulatory burdens on everyday possession.
Manufacturers, commercial sellers, and licensed dealers: compliance costs (redesign, markings, recordkeeping), potential market losses for models reclassified as assault weapons, and transaction costs for transfers increase business burdens.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits manufacture, import, sale, transfer, and possession of many semiautomatic 'assault weapons' and large-capacity magazines, with limited exceptions, grandfathering, transfer rules, and buy-back grant authority.
Official title: 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 Adam Schiff · Last progress April 30, 2025
Prohibits the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer, and possession of many semiautomatic firearms defined as “semiautomatic assault weapons” and of large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, while creating limited exceptions and a grandfathering/registration regime for existing lawful owners. Establishes new detailed statutory definitions for covered firearms and components, expands criminal penalties and cross-references, authorizes implementing regulations, and funds Byrne grant use for buy-back compensation. Also adds a 90-day post-enactment rule restricting private transfers of grandfathered assault weapons unless handled by licensed dealers, requires the Attorney General to issue regulations and enforcement reports to Congress, and contains a severability clause to preserve the remainder of the law if part is struck down.