Sponsors (2)
The bill strengthens federal criminal tools and transparency to address mass violence and terrorism and provides public accounting of response costs, but it risks broadly criminalizing common firearms features, raising privacy and stigmatization concerns from detailed reporting, and imposing significant administrative burdens and legal uncertainty.
People in schools, places of worship, voting sites, medical centers, and other public locations face stronger federal penalties (including life sentences) for mass killings committed with covered military‑style semiautomatic weapons, machineguns, or destructive devices, which could improve public safety and deterrence.
Federal prosecutors gain a clear federal charge and evidence reporting framework to pursue mass‑killing and related terrorism/support cases across jurisdictions, improving coordination and the likelihood of effective prosecutions.
The Attorney General is authorized to designate substantially similar weapon types by rule, allowing federal coverage to adapt to evolving weapon designs without new legislation, improving regulatory responsiveness.
Broad, feature‑based definitions of 'covered semiautomatic weapon' (e.g., pistol grips, folding stocks, threaded barrels, magazines >10 rounds) plus delegated rulemaking risk sweeping many commonly owned firearms and accessories into criminal exposure, creating major legal uncertainty for lawful owners and sellers.
Expanding federal criminal jurisdiction over certain homicides and creating new federal offenses increases the number of potential federal prosecutions, raising costs for investigations, trials, and incarceration that fall to taxpayers and the justice system.
Mandatory demographic reporting (race, ethnicity, nationality) about charged individuals in terrorism‑related prosecutions creates privacy risks and could fuel stigma, bias, or profiling against racial/ethnic and immigrant communities.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal felony for killing 3+ people with specified weapons at listed public locations and requires DOJ reporting and public cost/impact reports.
Introduced June 30, 2025 by Seth Moulton · Last progress June 30, 2025
Creates a new federal crime that penalizes killing three or more people in a single incident when the attacker used a machinegun, a destructive device, or a specified semiautomatic weapon and the incident involved an interstate/federal nexus or occurred at certain public locations. Requires annual DOJ reports on cases charged under the new crime and related terrorism-support statutes, and requires a public DOJ report after any charged incident summarizing victims present, government response costs, lost business revenue, and compensation provided. Adds definitions for covered semiautomatic weapons, machineguns, and destructive devices, inserts the new crime into federal criminal code headings, and directs the Attorney General to publish demographic and incident details for covered prosecutions; one statutory amendment’s text was incomplete in the provided excerpt so its effect could not be determined.