What Is the Gun Control Act of 1968? Rules, Penalties, and Who It Covers

The Gun Control Act of 1968 is the federal law that governs commercial firearm sales in the United States. It requires anyone in the business of making, importing, or selling guns to hold a federal license, bars several categories of people from possessing firearms or ammunition, and blocks unlicensed buyers from purchasing guns directly across state lines. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it after the assassinations of President Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy. It has been amended several times, but its licensing framework and its list of prohibited persons still form the backbone of federal firearms law.

Who Needs a Federal Firearms License

The law created the Federal Firearms License (FFL) system, administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).¹ If you manufacture, import, or deal in firearms without one, you are committing a federal crime. The license is what gives a holder the legal authority to ship, transport, and receive guns across state lines, something private citizens generally cannot do.

License types match specific activities. A Type 01 license covers dealers and gunsmiths and costs $200 for the initial application, with a $90 renewal every three years. A Type 07 license, for manufacturers, is $150 both to apply and to renew. Fingerprints are part of the application.¹

What “Engaged in the Business” Means

The law separates commercial dealers from people who occasionally sell a gun from a personal collection. A 1986 amendment defined “engaged in the business” as devoting time and labor to firearm dealing with the “principal objective of livelihood and profit.”² That gave hobbyists significant room to sell without a license. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 tightened the definition to “predominantly earn a profit,” which reaches sellers who don’t depend on gun sales for their living but repeatedly buy and resell firearms for money.

Who Cannot Own a Firearm

Federal law lists categories of people who cannot legally possess any firearm or ammunition. Licensed dealers may not transfer a gun to anyone they know or reasonably believe falls into one of these categories.³

Anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, which covers virtually all felonies.
Fugitives from justice with an active arrest warrant.
Anyone who unlawfully uses or is addicted to a controlled substance.
Anyone formally found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others, or involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. The statute uses outdated language, but the practical meaning is a formal judicial or administrative finding, not a diagnosis on its own.
Anyone subject to a qualifying restraining order involving an intimate partner or their child, and anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
Anyone discharged from the military under dishonorable conditions.
Former U.S. citizens who have formally renounced citizenship.
People in the United States illegally.

The domestic violence prohibitions were not in the 1968 law. Congress added the misdemeanor domestic violence ban in 1996, and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 expanded it to reach convictions involving dating partners, not just spouses or people who lived together.³

Minimum Age to Buy a Gun

Purchases from a licensed dealer have a federal age floor: 18 for rifles, shotguns, and long-gun ammunition, and 21 for handguns and handgun ammunition.³ States can set higher minimums and can apply different rules to private sales.

Anyone under 18 is generally barred from possessing a handgun or handgun-only ammunition at all. Narrow exceptions cover supervised use for employment, ranching, farming, target practice, hunting, or formal firearms instruction, with written parental consent and compliance with state and local law.⁴ Minors serving in the Armed Forces or National Guard may possess a handgun in the line of duty, and self-defense against a home intruder is also an exception.

Background Checks at the Point of Sale

The 1968 law made dealers responsible for verifying buyer eligibility, but it did not build a system for doing so. That came with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, which required licensed dealers to run every buyer through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Buyers fill out ATF Form 4473, and the dealer contacts NICS before completing the transfer.³

NICS returns one of three results: proceed, denied, or delayed. A proceed lets the sale go forward. A denial stops it. A delay means investigators need more time. For buyers 21 and older, if NICS does not respond with a denial within three business days, the dealer may legally complete the transfer. This “default proceed” window is sometimes called the Charleston loophole.³

For buyers under 21, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 extended the window. If NICS flags a potentially disqualifying juvenile record, investigators get up to 10 business days to resolve it before a default proceed applies.³

Interstate Sales and Private Transfers

Before 1968, mail-order guns crossed state lines with almost no oversight. The Gun Control Act ended that. Today an unlicensed buyer cannot receive a firearm directly from an out-of-state seller. The gun must ship to an FFL in the buyer’s home state, and that local dealer runs the background check and completes the transfer.³ The receiving dealer typically charges a transfer fee, commonly $20 to $75. This is why online gun purchases still route through a local shop.

One important boundary: the interstate rules and the background check requirement apply to transactions involving FFLs or crossing state lines. A private sale between two residents of the same state, where the seller is not “engaged in the business,” carries no federal background check or record-keeping obligation.⁴ Many states have added their own universal background check laws; many have not. Selling a gun to someone you know or reasonably believe is a prohibited person remains a federal crime either way.

Straw Purchases

A straw purchase is buying a gun on behalf of someone who cannot pass a background check or wants to avoid the paper trail. It is a federal crime to knowingly buy a firearm for a person you know or have reason to believe is prohibited, intends to use it in a felony or drug trafficking offense, or plans to hand it to someone in those categories.⁵ The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 made this a standalone offense; prosecutors had previously charged straw buyers under other provisions.

What the Law Does Not Cover

The Gun Control Act carves out antique firearms. A firearm counts as antique if it was manufactured in or before 1898, or is a replica of such a firearm that does not use modern fixed ammunition. Muzzle-loading rifles, shotguns, and pistols designed for black powder also qualify, as long as they cannot be readily converted to fire modern cartridges.⁶ Because they fall outside the statutory definition of “firearm,” antiques can be bought, sold, and shipped across state lines without an FFL or background check. Modifying one with a modern frame or receiver strips the exemption.

The law also reaches beyond ordinary firearms in the other direction, covering “destructive devices” such as bombs, grenades, mines, and weapons with a bore diameter over half an inch. Sporting shotguns that meet that bore size are exempted, along with signaling devices and certain surplus ordnance.⁷ Destructive devices require registration, a $200 tax stamp, and ATF approval under the National Firearms Act.

Penalties

Penalties turn on which provision is violated. The heaviest exposure — up to 15 years in prison — attaches to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, knowingly transferring a firearm to one, or transferring a firearm knowing it will be used to commit a felony, a terrorism offense, or a drug trafficking crime.⁸

Lying on ATF Form 4473 or dealing in firearms without a license carries up to 10 years. Most other willful violations carry up to five years. Record-keeping violations by licensed dealers carry up to one year. Fines can accompany any of these.⁸

Restoring Firearm Rights

Federal law lets a prohibited person petition the Attorney General for relief from the firearms disability. The applicant must show they are not likely to be dangerous and that restoring their rights would not be contrary to the public interest, with judicial review in federal district court if the application is denied.⁹

The pathway has been closed in practice for decades. Since the early 1990s, Congress has repeatedly barred ATF from spending money to process individual relief applications. In 2025, the Department of Justice published a proposed rule to move the process to the Office of the Pardon Attorney and set formal criteria for granting relief.¹⁰ Violent felons and registered sex offenders would remain presumptively ineligible. As of mid-2026, the rule has not been finalized.

How the Law Has Changed Since 1968

Three major amendments have reshaped the statute without displacing its core structure. The Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 limited ATF compliance inspections to once per year, prohibited the creation of a national firearms registry, and added a safe-passage provision for travelers moving unloaded, inaccessible firearms through states with stricter laws. It also banned civilian ownership of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986.²

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 added the background check requirement and built NICS.³

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 lowered the “engaged in the business” threshold, extended background check timelines for buyers under 21, expanded the domestic violence prohibition to dating partners, and created a standalone straw purchase crime. The licensing-and-prohibited-persons framework the 1968 law set up is still what governs who can buy a gun in the United States and how.

1
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Fact Sheet – Federal Firearms and Explosives Licenses by Types
2
GovInfo. Firearms Owners Protection Act, Public Law 99-308
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 922 – Unlawful Acts
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 932 – Straw Purchasing of Firearms
6
LII / Legal Information Institute. Definition: Antique Firearm from 18 USC 921(a)(16)
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 5845 – Definitions
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 924 – Penalties
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 925 – Exceptions: Relief From Disabilities
10
Federal Register. Application for Relief From Disabilities Imposed by Federal Laws With Respect to the Acquisition, Receipt, Transfer, Shipment, Transportation, or Possession of Firearms