Pizza, groceries, dog food, medicine, you name it – we can get almost everything delivered straight to our mailbox or doorstep. Everything that is, except guns. But that may soon change.
A newly-proposed federal policy would soon add firearms to that list. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has introduced a sweeping regulatory revision officially known as the “Non-Over-the-Counter Firearms Transaction Requirements” rule (Docket ATF-2026-0266).
If finalized, this proposal would authorize federally licensed firearms dealers to conduct background checks remotely and, through a separate U.S. Postal Service rule change, ship firearms directly to a buyer’s home address, provided both the dealer and the purchaser reside in the same state. A diverse variety of voices oppose this dangerous development; but not the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr.
This new approach marks a departure from existing frameworks that governed commercial gun sales for decades. Currently, online gun purchases are a multi-step, brick and mortar bound process. A buyer can browse and even pay for a firearm online, but the seller is legally obligated to ship the weapon to a local Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder near the buyer.
The purchaser, unless part of an identified exempt group, must then physically walk into that local gun shop, present identification in person, and wait for the dealer to process the required background check while waiting at the counter before taking possession of the weapon. As existing law was interpreted by the ATF, the storefront long served as a mandatory, in-person checkpoint for commercial gun transfers.
Those days may be over.