WASHINGTON (CN) — The Justice Department has unveiled a proposal to clarify who is required to conduct background checks when selling firearms, including at gun shows.
The regulation would define someone “engaged in the business” of selling firearms to include people who “repetitively” sell firearms within 30 days of their purchase, sell guns that are in their original packaging and offer multiple firearms of the same make and model. It would also include formerly federally licensed firearms dealers who sell guns that were in their business inventory and not transferred to a personal collection within a year of the sale.
Beyond the act of selling guns, the law would require background checks for people who create a website or make business cards related to a firearms business, maintain records to document and track profits and losses in guns sales, purchase business insurance or rent space at a gun show.
Thursday’s announcement is part of the Biden administration’s push to move the U.S. as close as possible to universal background checks without new congressional action by boosting existing laws and improving law enforcement cooperation.
It builds off an executive order President Joe Biden signed in March expanding the number of background checks conducted before gun sales, imposing harsher penalties on violations of federal firearms law and directing a study of how firearm manufacturers market to minors.
The order directed Attorney General Merrick Garland to revise the statutory definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms and thus must conduct background checks.
“The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was passed by Congress to reduce gun violence, including by expanding the background checks that keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “This proposed rule implements Congress’s mandate to expand the definition of who must obtain a license and conduct a background check before selling firearms.”
Steven Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said federal laws allow “all law-abiding Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights — not to facilitate the intentional evasion of the background check system.
“An increasing number of individuals engaged in the business of selling firearms for profit have chosen not to register as federal firearms licensees, as required by law,” he said in a press release. “Instead, they have sought to make money through the off-book, illicit sale of firearms. These activities undermine the law, endanger public safety, create significant burdens on law enforcement and are unfair to the many licensed dealers who make considerable efforts to follow the law.”
The White House emphasized that the regulation would not apply to people selling a gun to a family member and buying or selling curios, relics and collectible personal firearms as a hobby. The proposal adds a definition of “personal firearms collection” to clarify a difference between hobbyists and collectors who want to liquidate their collections.
“[I]f you are offering a firearm for sale to make money, and telling a customer that you can purchase and sell him additional firearms, you would presumptively need a license — and need to run background checks,” the White House said in a fact sheet.
Kris Brown, president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence, said the clarification “has been needed for decades.”
“This rule expands requirements for gun dealers to become licensed and conduct background checks, closing a massive loophole in our life-saving background checks system,” Brown said in a statement. “It is past time to ensure that anyone who sells firearms for profits is required to be licensed and that their sales of firearms are subject to a Brady Background Check.”
According to the nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive, 28,788 people have died of firearm-related causes in 2023, including 16,038 suicides. The database reported at least 478 mass shootings so far this year, which are defined as shootings with at least four people injured or killed in a single incident.
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