Sponsors
The bill increases child and household firearm safety through storage rules, penalties, education, and reporting, but does so at the cost of greater criminal and civil liability risk for families and owners, higher administrative and enforcement burdens, and potential uneven access to grant-funded education.
Households with children and visitors will face reduced risk of accidental shootings because unsecured firearms must be secured or carried, lowering chances of injury or death.
Parents and children will be safer because parental consent will only be valid when the adult actually knows a qualified, legally eligible adult will supervise, reducing juveniles' unsupervised access to handguns and the chance that prohibited persons supervise them.
People injured by incidents involving unsecured firearms (or their families/estates) gain stronger legal recourse — compensatory and punitive damages plus injunctive relief — increasing deterrence against unsafe storage.
Parents and guardians face increased criminal liability and legal uncertainty because 'actual knowledge' standards could convict or penalize families for mistaken beliefs about who will supervise a juvenile, chilling lawful supervised activities.
Firearm owners risk substantial civil penalties, joint-and-several liability for large damages, and a possible administrative five-year firearms disability after an assessment — potentially depriving people of rights and exposing them to major financial loss without a criminal conviction.
Implementing NICS changes, dealer notices, enforcement hearings, disaggregated reporting, and litigation will raise administrative costs and workloads for federal agencies, dealers, insurers, and ultimately taxpayers or customers.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Introduced June 27, 2025 by Madeleine Dean · Last progress June 27, 2025
Makes it illegal for a parent or guardian to give written consent for a juvenile to possess a handgun unless the parent actually knows the juvenile will be under the active supervision of a lawful adult. Creates a federal secure-storage requirement for firearms not being carried on the body, adds civil and administrative penalties for violating the storage rule, and bars people assessed those penalties from receiving or possessing firearms for five years. Provides competitive grants to local school districts in states with similar secure-storage laws to give parents gun-safety education, and requires the Attorney General to report annually with disaggregated data on enforcement.