Sponsors (18)
The bill strengthens FTC oversight to reduce youth-targeted and deceptive firearm advertising and protect consumers, at the cost of added compliance and administrative burdens, potential PRA-related data collection impacts, and increased risk of First Amendment litigation.
Children and teens would face fewer firearm advertisements and less glamorization of semiautomatic weapons, reducing youth exposure to weapons marketing and its potential influence.
Consumers would gain protection from firearm ads that imply or encourage illegal use, reducing misleading promotion of dangerous behavior.
The Federal Trade Commission would receive clearer enforcement authority to investigate and penalize deceptive or unsafe firearm marketing, which could deter bad practices across the industry.
Firearm manufacturers, dealers, and importers would face new compliance costs and potential penalties for advertising practices, raising business expenses.
Broad FTC rulemaking over firearm advertising could prompt First Amendment commercial-speech litigation and legal uncertainty for advertisers and regulators.
Taxpayers could incur administrative costs from the mandated study, reporting, and subsequent FTC rulemaking and enforcement activities.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires an FTC study of firearm advertising, a report to Congress within 2 years, and mandates FTC rules within 18 months to ban unfair or deceptive firearm marketing that targets youth, encourages illegal use, or promotes semiautomatic assault weapons.
Requires the Federal Trade Commission to study firearm advertising and marketing practices, focusing on materials that target people under 18, encourage or imply illegal use, or promote semiautomatic assault weapons, and to report to Congress within two years. Within 18 months after that report, the FTC must issue regulations banning unfair or deceptive firearm advertising or marketing as identified by the study; violations would be enforced under the FTC's existing authority and penalties. The bill also exempts the FTC's information collection for the study from the Paperwork Reduction Act and adopts statutory definitions of firearm industry terms by reference to federal criminal law.
Introduced February 11, 2026 by Robin L. Kelly · Last progress February 11, 2026