Gun Control Act of 1968

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Gun Control Act on October 22, 1968, months after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. It requires people in the business of selling guns to hold a federal firearms license, bans most interstate sales of guns to individuals, sets minimum ages of 18 for long guns and 21 for handguns bought from dealers, and requires serial numbers. Licensed dealers must keep records of sales, which the ATF can inspect.

The law lists categories of people who may not have guns, including people convicted of felonies, fugitives, unlawful drug users, people committed to mental institutions, people dishonorably discharged, and, under later amendments, people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors or under certain restraining orders. The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 eased some rules, barred a federal registry of gun owners, and froze civilian ownership of new machine guns. The Brady Act of 1993 added background checks for sales by licensed dealers.

A 1994 ban on many semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines expired in 2004. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, passed after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, added checks of juvenile records for buyers under 21, funded state red flag programs, and clarified who must get a dealer license. In 2025 the Supreme Court upheld an ATF rule treating gun kits that can be readily assembled as firearms, while the administration rolled back other ATF rules and began restoring gun rights to some people with past convictions.