Federal firearms regulators dropped a sweeping package of regulatory reforms last week, and the sheer scale of it caught the attention of gun owners and policy watchers across the country.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, alongside the Department of Justice, unveiled 34 separate notices of proposed and final rule changes in a single release — a volume of simultaneous action that signals a dramatic shift in how the federal government intends to approach firearms regulation going forward.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche did not mince words when describing the administration’s posture. “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” Blanche said in the joint release.
Blanche further stated that the DOJ is putting a stop to what he characterized as the use of federal power as a weapon against gun owners who have broken no laws.
ATF Director Robert Cekada echoed that position, drawing a sharp line between the agency’s past enforcement patterns and what comes next. “Our enforcement focus from here on out is on willful violators and criminal actors,” Cekada said.
The overall thrust of the regulatory package, according to officials, is to strip away layers of bureaucratic complexity that they say have long burdened responsible gun owners and federally licensed dealers without delivering meaningful gains in public safety.
Tucked within the broader rollout is a proposal that has drawn attention well beyond the firearms community. The ATF is moving to require applicants on federal gun purchase forms to record their biological sex — either male or female — rather than a gender identity.
The agency stated directly in its proposal that biological sex “does not include the concept of gender identity,” leaving no ambiguity about the intended scope of the change.
The ATF maintained that the adjustment is a clarification measure and will not alter the criteria used to determine whether any individual passes or fails a federal background check.
British news outlet The Independent reported that the proposed rule would effectively single out transgender individuals seeking to legally purchase firearms.
Firearms policy experts cited by the outlet warned that transgender buyers could face a legal bind — complying with the form as written could mean listing information that conflicts with their legal identity documents, while submitting conflicting information carries federal penalties that include the possibility of prison time.
Beyond the biological sex question, the package contains reforms that firearms advocates have sought for years.
The ATF is proposing to repeal the Biden-era pistol brace rule, which had drawn fierce opposition from gun owners and Second Amendment organizations since its introduction.
The Firearms Policy Coalition published a breakdown of all 34 items on the social media platform X, giving gun owners a plain-language summary of each proposed change.
Other proposals in the package would revise the regulatory definition of what it means to be “engaged in the business” of selling firearms, update machine gun classifications in response to the Supreme Court’s Cargill ruling, and extend the period during which a completed background check remains valid under the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Federally licensed dealers would also see operational changes under several of the proposals, including permission to maintain digital records rather than paper ones, and a replacement of the current open-ended Form 4473 retention requirement with fixed timelines of either 20 or 30 years.
Additional items in the package address National Firearms Act procedures, including the removal of the CLEO notification requirement, a provision allowing married couples to register NFA items jointly, and a repeal of the interstate transport notice requirement for trips lasting under one year.
The proposal also calls for removing most former Soviet-bloc nations from the list of countries barred from exporting firearms and ammunition to the United States, with Russia remaining on the restricted list.
