Three questions come up more than any others when regular people call my shop. Can I buy this gun as a gift for my dad? My uncle passed and left me his rifles—what do I do? My buddy wants to buy my old shotgun, is that legal? The answers are not as scary as the internet makes them sound, but they are not as simple as "it's my gun, I can do what I want" either.
Here is how each one actually works in 2026, in plain English, from someone who has filled out the paperwork a few thousand times.
Buying a firearm as a gift
Yes, you can buy a gun as a gift. It happens every birthday, every Christmas, every Father's Day. The federal government knows this. ATF even publishes a little reminder graphic about it every December.
Here is the rule. When you fill out the Form 4473 at the counter, Question 21.a asks if you are the "actual transferee/buyer" of the firearm. That question has a specific meaning. If you are buying the firearm as a genuine gift for someone else—you are paying for it, you are giving it to them, no strings—you are the actual buyer. You check "yes." The recipient does not need to be present. You do not need to bring their ID. You do not need their permission.
What makes it a straw purchase instead of a gift is money or a prior arrangement. If your cousin hands you cash and says "pick me up a Glock 19, I'll meet you in the parking lot," that is a straw purchase. You are not the buyer. You are a front. That is a federal felony under 18 U.S.C. § 932, which the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 made a standalone offense with serious prison time attached. The 4473 spells this out right above the signature line, and the warning is not theater.
The clean test I give customers: if you are spending your own money and the firearm is a true gift, you are fine. If someone else's money is involved, or the "gift" is really a workaround because the recipient does not want to do their own background check, stop. Walk away.
A few practical points:
- The recipient still has to be legally allowed to own the firearm. If you know or have reasonable cause to believe they are a prohibited person—a felon, someone under a qualifying restraining order, a user of unlawful drugs, and so on under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)—you cannot give them the gun. "I didn't ask" is not a defense.
- Handguns have an age floor. Federal law sets 18 for long guns from a private party and 21 for handguns from a dealer. Some states go higher. The Youth Handgun Safety Act, 18 U.S.C. § 922(x), restricts handgun possession by people under 18 with narrow exceptions.
- If you are gifting across state lines, you generally cannot hand the firearm over in person. You ship it to an FFL in the recipient's state and they pick it up there after a 4473 and background check. That is 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3) and § 922(a)(5) at work.
That last one trips people up. You live in Ohio, your son lives in Texas, you bought him a rifle for his graduation. You cannot drive it down and hand it to him. You ship it to a dealer in Texas, he goes in, does the paperwork, picks it up. Same household state? No problem, hand it over. Different states? FFL in the middle.
Inheriting a firearm
This is the call I get most often, and it is almost always from someone whose dad or grandfather just passed. They are grieving, they are stressed, and they think the ATF is about to kick in the door. They are not.
The federal rule for inheritance is more relaxed than for sales. Under 27 CFR § 478.30, a firearm passed by bequest or intestate succession—which is lawyer talk for "left to you in a will" or "passed to you because there was no will"—can cross state lines without going through an FFL. So if your grandfather in Pennsylvania left you his Remington 700 and you live in North Carolina, the executor can ship or deliver that rifle directly to you. No 4473 at the federal level for the inheritance itself.
But—and this is a real but—state law controls what happens next. Some states require any firearm transfer, including inheritance, to be registered, reported, or run through a dealer. California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Washington, Colorado, and several others have rules that go beyond federal law. Before you take possession of inherited firearms, look up your state's transfer and registration requirements, or call a local FFL and ask. We deal with this constantly.
A few things to know either way:
- You still have to be legally allowed to possess the firearm. If you are a prohibited person under § 922(g), you cannot inherit a working firearm. The executor needs to find another path—sale, transfer to another heir, or surrender.
- Magazine capacity, "assault weapon" features, and handgun rosters vary by state. A gun that was legal where your relative lived may not be legal where you live. Find this out before it arrives.
- Keep documentation. A copy of the will, the death certificate, or a letter from the executor. If a cop ever asks why you have grandpa's Colt, you want paper.
What if it is an NFA item?
This is where people panic, and they should not. Suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, machine guns, AOWs, and destructive devices are registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. When the registered owner dies, the item passes to the heir on a Form 5—tax-exempt. Always has been. That has not changed.
What did change recently: as of January 1, 2026, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the $200 NFA transfer tax was eliminated for suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and AOWs. Machine guns and destructive devices still carry the $200 tax on regular Form 4 transfers. Inheritance transfers on Form 5 have always been tax-free, so for heirs this is less of a financial change than it sounds, but the broader NFA landscape is shifting.
The Form 5 process still requires ATF approval, fingerprints and a photo for individual heirs, and a background check. You do not get to use the item until the form is approved. In the meantime, the executor holds it. Do not assume Uncle Bob's suppressor is yours to use the day after the funeral. It is not, until ATF says so.
If you are inheriting NFA items, slow down and either get a lawyer who handles NFA estates or call a Class 3 dealer. The Form 5 is straightforward but the timing and chain of custody matter. A dealer who has done a hundred of these will walk you through it.
Selling or transferring to a friend
Here is where federal and state law really diverge, and where most of the confusion lives.
Federal law, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(5), allows a private individual who is not "engaged in the business" of dealing firearms to sell or give a firearm to another resident of the same state, as long as the seller does not know or have reasonable cause to believe the buyer is prohibited or under the minimum age. No 4473. No background check at the federal level. That is the baseline.
Two important wrinkles to that baseline:
One: it has to be intrastate. You and the buyer must both reside in the same state. A private sale across state lines must go through an FFL in the buyer's state. Your friend who moved to Tennessee cannot just drive up and grab your AR. He goes through a dealer down there.
Two: "engaged in the business" got redefined. ATF Final Rule 2022R-17F took effect in 2024 and substantially broadened what counts as dealing firearms for profit. You do not need a storefront. You do not need a specific number of guns sold. If your pattern of conduct shows you are buying and selling firearms to "predominantly earn a profit," you need a license. Selling off your personal collection, occasional trades with friends, that is still fine. Running a side hustle out of your garage is not. If you sell more than a handful of guns a year and you are buying them with resale in mind, talk to a lawyer or look at our Engaged in the Business course before you keep going.
Then the state layer drops on top. A growing number of states require all firearm transfers, including private sales between friends and family, to go through a licensed dealer with a background check. As of 2026 that list includes California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland (handguns), Massachusetts, Michigan (handguns), Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania (handguns), Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and a couple of others. Verify your state's current rule—these change. Some states require it only for handguns. Some only at gun shows. Some not at all.
If your state requires the transfer to run through an FFL, that is what you do. You and your friend walk into a dealer, the dealer logs the gun into the bound book, your friend fills out a 4473, the background check runs, and the dealer logs it out. A dealer typically charges $25 to $75 for this service. It is cheap insurance.
Even in states where federal law is the ceiling and no FFL is required, I tell people: do a bill of sale. Names, addresses, ID numbers, the firearm's make/model/serial number, date, both signatures. Keep your copy. If that gun ever shows up at a crime scene and the trace lands at your door, that bill of sale is the difference between a five-minute conversation and a very long week.
When in doubt, call a dealer
None of this is legal advice—for your specific situation, especially with inheritance, NFA items, or any cross-state transfer, talk to qualified counsel or your local ATF field office.
But for the day-to-day questions—can I gift this, can I sell to my neighbor, what do I do with grandpa's guns—call a dealer. Most of us will answer the phone and walk you through it for free. We do this every day. We would rather spend ten minutes on a call than read about you in the paper because somebody on Reddit gave you bad advice.
Find a local FFL with a real shop, real hours, and a real bound book. Ask them. If they sound unsure, call another one. The good ones—the ones who have taken training like our 4473 Completion & Recordkeeping and NFA Forms & Form 4 Processing courses—will know the answer or know who to send you to. That is the whole point of having a licensed firearms industry: somebody who has done the work is on the other end of the line when you need them.