This law made it illegal for an unlicensed person to make a firearm for sale or distribution. The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) requires, among other things, that persons 'engaged in the business' of dealing in firearms be licensed by the federal government.

Gun Control Legislation and Homemade Guns

However, the Court has also acknowledged that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right, and that lawmakers can still impose regulations, such as forbidding some people from possessing them ( felons, for example) prohibiting them in places such as schools and government buildings and imposing conditions and qualifications on their sale, licensing, and regulation. 570 (2008) New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. The United States Supreme Court has held that ordinary, law-abiding citizens have a Second Amendment right to keep a gun at home for self-defense and to carry a handgun in public for self-protection. Does the Second Amendment protect my right to make and own a homemade gun? Even more surprising, in most states, a gun made wholly or even twenty percent at home need not be registered, and the owner need not pass a background check or obtain a license. It might come as somewhat of a surprise that even in this era of regulation, it's still completely legal to make and own a homemade gun (also called a self-assembled or privately made gun). Legal scholars have recognized that the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms would be meaningless in practice unless the government gave individuals the ability to exercise that right-which includes making their own guns.įor the past almost half-century, however, the sale and subsequent control of firearms have been heavily regulated by federal law.

The practice is deeply rooted in our constitutional history and tradition.

People in the United States have been making their own guns for centuries.

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