Firearms & Weapons
Buying, carrying, transporting, storing and inheriting a firearm, and who is barred from possessing one.
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Buying a Firearm: The Background Check and What Delays It
A licensed dealer must run a federal background check before handing over a firearm. The system answers proceed, delayed or denied, and each answer has its own timetable and its own fix.
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Prohibited Persons: Who May Not Possess a Firearm
Federal law lists nine categories of people who may not possess a firearm, and most states add their own. The categories turn on legal technicalities that surprise people who assume a clean recent record settles it.
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Concealed Carry Permits and Reciprocity Between States
A carry permit is issued by one state under that state's rules. Whether it works across a state line is decided entirely by the state you are entering, and the answers are inconsistent.
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Transporting Firearms Across State Lines
Moving a firearm between states is governed by a narrow federal protection plus the law of every state you pass through. The packing rules are specific and the protection disappears if you break them.
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Red Flag Laws and Extreme Risk Protection Orders
An extreme risk protection order is a civil court order that temporarily removes firearm access from someone a judge finds dangerous. It exists only in states that have passed one, and the procedure is state law throughout.
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Restoring Firearm Rights After a Conviction
Firearm rights are restored by an act of a court or an executive, not by the passage of time. Which route is open depends on who convicted you and what your state's relief order says.
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Private Sales, Gifts, and Transfers Between Individuals
A private firearm transfer is legal in most of the country, but only between residents of the same state, only to someone eligible, and only where state law does not require a dealer.
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Storage Requirements and Liability for Access by Minors
Federal law barely regulates how you store a firearm at home. State child access laws do, and in much of the country an unsecured firearm that a child reaches turns into criminal charges and a civil claim.
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Firearms in Vehicles, Workplaces, and Posted Premises
Where a lawfully owned firearm may go is decided by three separate layers: state carry law, the property owner's decision, and a short list of places closed to everyone.
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Inheriting a Firearm Through an Estate
A firearm left in a will can usually pass to an eligible heir without a dealer, even across a state line. Everything turns on the heir being eligible and on the item being lawful where the heir lives.
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Non-Firearm Weapons: Knives, Sprays, and Stun Devices
Knives, sprays and stun devices are governed almost entirely by state and local law, and the rules change at city limits as well as state lines. Federal law reaches only a narrow slice.