Sponsors (32)
Introduced April 17, 2025 by LaMonica McIver · Last progress April 17, 2025
The bill directs substantial federal funding to state and local buybacks and adds a federal prohibition on using smart prepaid cards for firearm transfers—potentially reducing guns in circulation and illicit transactions—at the cost of significant federal spending, compliance burdens, exclusion of some dealers, and risks of overbroad criminalization and enforcement diversion.
Communities and state/local governments receive federal grants ($360M/year for 3 years) to run buyback programs that use smart prepaid cards (which can't be used to buy guns/ammunition), reducing firearms in circulation and lowering community risk of gun violence and accidental harm.
A federal prohibition on using or accepting smart prepaid cards to buy or transfer guns and ammunition creates a uniform federal offense and makes it harder to use these cards to facilitate illicit firearms transactions across state lines, aiding federal law enforcement.
Grants require and fund the destruction of collected guns and parts (minimum 5% of each grant for destruction), reducing the chance those weapons return to the market.
Taxpayers fund the program ($360 million per year for three years), increasing federal spending that could raise deficits or crowd out other priorities.
If the definition of 'smart prepaid card' is broad, the criminal prohibition risks overcriminalizing common payment methods used in lawful private transfers, potentially ensnaring ordinary people.
Enforcement may shift toward prosecuting payment-method violations (and defending related prosecutions), diverting federal and local law enforcement and court resources away from investigations of violent crime.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal grant program that pays states, tribes, local governments, and eligible gun dealers to run gun buyback programs using specially restricted "smart prepaid cards." The bill sets rules for how cards and funds are issued, used, and returned, requires some collected firearms to be destroyed, authorizes multi-year funding, and makes it a federal crime to use or accept a smart prepaid card to acquire or transfer a firearm or ammunition in interstate or foreign commerce.