Sponsors (200)
The bill aims to improve child and public safety by promoting and enforcing secure firearm storage (including penalties and federal support), but does so at the cost of new legal exposure, compliance expenses, administrative burdens, and substantial litigation/authority questions for gun owners and governments.
Children, teens, and household members: federal duties and programs to encourage locked/secure firearm storage would likely reduce accidental shootings, youth suicides, and unauthorized access to guns in homes.
General public safety: creating penalties and clarifying that negligent noncompliance can be treated as legal cause may deter negligent storage and reduce injuries or deaths from unsecured firearms.
States and localities: a federal safe-storage program could provide grants, guidance, or technical assistance to support safer storage practices, helping jurisdictions that lack resources.
Gun owners and householders: the bill creates new criminal exposure (including criminal penalties and recurring fines) and risks of firearm seizure/forfeiture for storage violations, increasing legal and financial vulnerability.
Individuals and taxpayers: compliance (buying locks/safes) and establishing a new federal program could impose out-of-pocket costs on gun owners and raise federal spending funded by taxpayers.
Courts, defendants, and communities: the bill increases legal uncertainty (federal authority challenges, non-binding 'sense of Congress' effects, and vague standards like what one 'reasonably should know'), which could prompt more litigation, uneven enforcement, and greater judicial workload.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Makes it a federal offense to keep a firearm in a residence when a minor or prohibited resident is likely to access it unless it is securely locked or carried, sets fines and stronger penalties if harm occurs, and adds a safe-storage program to federal law.
Creates a new federal crime to require safe storage of firearms in residences when a minor is likely to access the gun or when a resident is legally prohibited from possessing firearms, with limited exceptions for secured storage and for people carrying a gun on their person or within immediate reach. Sets a base penalty of a civil fine per violation and stronger criminal penalties (including fines, up to 5 years in prison, and forfeiture) if an improperly stored gun is obtained and causes injury or death, and directs the addition of a federal "Firearm Safe Storage Program" to existing crime-control law. Also includes a non-binding statement that failing to secure a firearm is negligence and can be treated as a legal cause of resulting harm, plus a severability clause. The bill applies to firearms that have moved in or affected interstate commerce (which covers the vast majority of guns).
Introduced February 25, 2025 by Rosa L. Delauro · Last progress February 25, 2025