Sponsors (13)
The bill aims to improve public safety by barring people convicted of violent or threat-based misdemeanor hate crimes from accessing firearms, but it expands long-term collateral firearm disabilities, increases potential prosecutions and litigation, and risks uneven impacts on over-policed communities.
People from targeted groups (racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities) and the broader public would face a lower risk of hate-motivated violence because individuals convicted of violent or credible-threat misdemeanor hate crimes would be barred from buying or possessing firearms.
Federal, state, and tribal communities could see reduced risk of repeat hate-motivated violence by removing firearms access after qualifying misdemeanor convictions or enhanced sentences that involved force or credible threats.
Firearms sellers and licensed transferors would gain clearer legal standards to refuse transfers to individuals with qualifying misdemeanor hate-crime convictions, reducing uncertainty and potential liability when deciding not to transfer a firearm.
People with older or comparatively minor misdemeanor convictions — and their families — could permanently lose the right to buy or possess firearms unless they obtain narrowly defined pardons or restorations, creating lasting collateral consequences.
Racial and ethnic minority communities and immigrants could bear unequal burdens because expanded firearm disabilities tied to misdemeanor convictions may amplify existing disparities from policing and misdemeanor enforcement.
Expanding federal firearm prohibitions to include certain misdemeanor convictions increases the number of people subject to criminal penalties for possession, potentially producing more prosecutions, court costs, and law-enforcement burdens.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Bars people convicted of certain misdemeanor hate crimes or who received enhanced hate-motivated misdemeanor sentences from buying, possessing, or receiving firearms by adding new federal disqualifying categories.
Official title: To prevent a person who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in its commission, from obtaining a firearm.
Introduced November 21, 2025 by Veronica Escobar · Last progress November 21, 2025
Adds two new federal firearm-disability categories that bar people convicted of certain misdemeanor hate crimes, or who received an enhanced misdemeanor sentence for a hate-motivated offense, from buying, receiving, possessing, or transporting firearms. The bill defines key terms for what counts as a "misdemeanor hate crime" and an "enhanced hate crime misdemeanor sentence," and excludes certain narrow categories of convictions and restoration pathways. Applies these new definitions to existing federal prohibitions on transferring and possessing firearms, making misdemeanor hate-crime convictions that meet the bill’s definitions a legal disqualifier under federal gun law. The rule applies to convictions in federal, state, and tribal courts subject to specified exceptions and restoration-of-rights provisions.