What Is the Gun Show Loophole?

What is the “gun show loophole”?

A political phrase for lawful private sales between citizens.

Here is what federal law actually says, and how it has changed.

This page is written from a gun owner’s point of view, stated up front.
Facts are checked against the law itself and government sources, linked below.
Shooters, not lawyers: always check your state and local laws.

The short answer

Dealers

Anyone engaged in the business of dealing firearms needs a federal firearms license and must run a background check on every sale, at a store or at a gun show.

Private sellers

A private citizen making an occasional sale from a personal collection, to a resident of the same state, is not required by federal law to run a background check. Many states add their own rules.

Out of state

A private sale to a resident of another state has to go through a licensed dealer in the buyer’s state.

Never legal

Selling to someone a seller knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is prohibited from having a firearm is a federal crime for everyone.

The rule is the same at a gun show, in a parking lot or at a kitchen table. Gun owners point out that this is not a loophole: Congress left occasional private sales out of the dealer rules on purpose. Gun control groups argue that every sale should go through a background check. Both sides are describing the same law.

How the law got here

1968
Gun Control Act
Requires anyone “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms to be licensed, but does not define the phrase.
1986
Firearm Owners Protection Act
Defines “engaged in the business” as dealing with the principal objective of livelihood and profit, protects occasional sales from a personal collection, and lets licensed dealers sell at gun shows in their own state.
1993
Brady Act
Requires background checks on sales by licensed dealers. The national instant check system (NICS) starts on November 30, 1998. Private sales are left out.
1994 to 1998
Private sales become a target
After the Brady Act, gun control groups and some representatives begin describing ordinary private sales as a gap in the law. Twelve bills to narrow or end private sales are introduced between the Brady Act and 1999, including a 1994 proposal to limit private handgun sales to one a month. None pass.
November 7, 1998
The phrase goes national
Three weeks before NICS starts, President Clinton uses his radio address to direct the Treasury Secretary and Attorney General to “close the gun show loophole.” A White House fact sheet that day is headed “Closing the Gun Show Loophole.” The phrase now has the backing of the federal government.
December 1998
First use in The New York Times
The phrase appears in The New York Times for the first time, in a story about a coalition of mayors pushing for tighter gun laws.
February 6, 1999
The gun show report
Treasury, Justice and ATF release “Gun Shows: Brady Checks and Crime Gun Traces,” built on 314 ATF investigations. In his radio address that day, the President calls gun shows “a cash-and-carry convenience store” for weapons used in crimes.
April 1999
Columbine
The two Columbine murderers, both 17, had a friend who had just turned 18 buy three long guns from private sellers at a Denver-area gun show. She had no record and could have passed a background check at any dealer table in the same building. Soon after, press releases about the “gun show loophole” follow, and the phrase spreads through major newspapers that year.
May 20, 1999
A 50 to 50 Senate tie
The Lautenberg gun show amendment passes the Senate only when Vice President Gore breaks a 50 to 50 tie. In June, the House rejects the gun show background check bill, 147 to 280. It never becomes law.
2000
Colorado votes
Colorado voters pass a ballot measure requiring background checks on all sales at gun shows.
2001 to 2019
The same bill, again and again
“Gun Show Loophole Closing Act” bills are filed in Congress after Congress. None pass.
2013
The 40 percent claim
The President says “as many as 40 percent” of gun purchases happen without a background check. The figure comes from a small 1994 survey taken before the instant check system existed, and the Washington Post Fact Checker rates it Three Pinocchios. Reworked by its own authors, the survey points to 14 to 22 percent. On April 17, 2013, the Manchin-Toomey background check amendment fails in the Senate, 54 to 46.
2015
The claim returns
A presidential candidate says 40 percent of guns are sold at gun shows or online. The Washington Post Fact Checker again rates the claim Three Pinocchios.
June 25, 2022
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act
Changes the definition to selling firearms “to predominantly earn a profit,” while keeping the exemption for occasional sales and personal collections.
April 2024
ATF “engaged in the business” rule
A 466-page rule adds presumptions about who counts as a dealer, effective May 20, 2024. States, gun rights groups and individuals sue.
2025
Courts and review
The Justice Department announces a review in April 2025. A federal court in Alabama rules in an NRA case that ATF exceeded its authority.
May 6, 2026
ATF proposes a rollback
ATF proposes removing the 2024 rule’s presumptions and added definitions.
June 12, 2026
2024 rule vacated
A federal court in Texas vacates the 2024 rule in its entirety. In August 2026 the court refuses to narrow that judgment. The 2022 law itself still stands.

How the phrase has been used

There has never been a gun show exception in federal law.

A licensed dealer at a gun show runs the same background check he runs at his store. A private seller at a gun show follows the same rules he follows at his kitchen table. The rule is about who is selling, not where. Putting “gun show” in the name points at a place and the people who go there.

“Loophole” is not a neutral word. It suggests someone slipping through a gap to do something wrong. ABC News noted that gun control groups had worked the phrase into the media’s everyday vocabulary, and that the word carries that meaning. The people it describes are collectors, families selling an estate and neighbors trading with neighbors, all following the law as Congress wrote it.

The numbers behind the phrase did not hold up. The 40 percent figure earned Three Pinocchios twice. In federal surveys of prison inmates who had a gun during their crime, 0.7 percent got it at a gun show in 1997 and 0.8 percent in 2016. Most got theirs from the street, theft, or friends and family.

The case that launched it does not fit it. The Columbine buyer was a legal adult who could have passed a check anywhere. A background check on her purchase would not have stopped the murders. Colorado later passed a law aimed at exactly what she did: giving long guns to minors without a parent’s consent.

For gun owners, that is the problem with the phrase. It takes lawful, ordinary sales and wraps them in the language of crime, so that anyone at a gun show looks like part of a scheme. Honest debate about background checks is fair. Labeling law-abiding people as the problem is not.

Supporters of universal background checks argue that private sales are still a route for prohibited buyers, and that checks on every sale would close it. Both sides are linked in the sources below so readers can judge for themselves.

What the numbers say

In the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of prison inmates (2016 data, published 2019), 0.8% of inmates who had a firearm during their offense said they got it at a gun show. Most got their firearm through theft, the street or someone they knew.

Words matter

The words used in this debate shape it. Minuteman University.com keeps a Words Matter guide, and Gun Show Reviews.com covers gun show laws by state.

Sources

Updated November 12, 2026. Corrections are welcome through the Contact Us form.
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