Gun law in the United States

Gun laws of the United States are found in a number of federal statutes. These laws regulate the manufacture, trade, possession, transfer, record keeping, transport, and destruction of firearms, ammunition, and firearms accessories. They are enforced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

The right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Most federal gun laws are found in the following acts:

In the United States the right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. While there have been vigorous debates on the nature of this right, there was a lack of clear federal court rulings defining the right until two relatively recent United States Supreme Court cases.

An individual right to own a gun for personal use was affirmed in the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008, which overturned a handgun ban in the Federal District of Columbia. In the Heller decision, the court's majority opinion said that the Second Amendment protects "the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home."

However, in delivering the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote on the Second Amendment not being an unlimited right:

Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

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