Sponsors (43)
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
The bill tightens and clarifies federal rules on semiautomatic 'assault weapons'—strengthening enforcement, penalties, and buy-back funding to reduce dangerous firearms—while imposing significant criminal penalties, compliance costs, transfer restrictions, and administrative burdens that will affect lawful owners, industry, and local public-safety priorities.
General public and law enforcement: clearer federal definitions of 'semiautomatic assault weapons' make it easier to identify prohibited items, enabling enforcement and likely reducing the availability of defined weapons.
Law enforcement and public-safety agencies: statutory exemptions and clarified definitions preserve operational access for qualified officers while giving police clearer guidance for investigations.
Owners who lawfully possessed covered weapons before enactment: a grandfathering regime lets them keep those weapons provided they comply with required registration, storage, and transfer rules, preserving some existing ownership rights.
Millions of current gun owners and dealers: the bill creates new federal crimes for possession, manufacture, sale, and transfer of many semiautomatic firearms and high-capacity magazines, exposing noncompliant owners and dealers to fines, imprisonment, and seizure risk.
Lawful owners (collectors, sport shooters, hunters) and courts: broad or feature-based definitions could unintentionally sweep in many common firearms and parts, creating legal uncertainty, disputes about eligibility, and risk of unintentional violations.
Manufacturers, importers, sellers, and private owners: new registration, marking, recordkeeping, redesign, and compliance obligations will impose direct costs on industry and on private owners required to register or modify storage/transfer practices.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Bans manufacture, import, sale, transfer, and possession of many semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, with narrow exemptions and grandfathering.
The bill bans the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer, and possession of a broad set of semiautomatic “assault weapons” and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, defines many weapon features and named models that trigger the ban, and sets criminal penalties for violations. It creates narrow exemptions (government, qualified law enforcement, certain Atomic Energy Act licensees), allows grandfathering for existing lawful owners under conditions, requires the Attorney General to issue implementing regulations, and permits Byrne grant funds to pay people who surrender covered weapons and magazines in buy-back programs. The law adds new criminal and transfer rules, requires manufacturers/importers to keep records and label products, expands existing penalty cross-references, and adds a 90‑day delayed rule for transfers of grandfathered weapons that require licensed intermediaries; it also contains a savings clause to preserve other provisions if part is found unconstitutional.