Joe Biden’s administration did little to restrict online gun sales

Despite President Joe Biden's promise to end the online sale of firearms and ammunition, his administration did little to advance that policy.

Congress passed no legislation to ban online gun sales under Biden's watch. 

Federal law mandates that people who sell firearms repeatedly and primarily to earn a profit must obtain a federal firearm license. Federally licensed dealers must conduct background checks for gun sales, including those conducted online. Guns sold online by licensed dealers must be shipped to a local licensed dealer. 

The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act expanded the definition of who should register as a federal firearms dealer, but did not ban online sales. In April, the Justice Department finalized a rule to implement the 2022 law, and the rule made background checks for online sales more common. It affected an estimated 23,000 firearm dealers, and is expected to impact tens of thousands of gun sales a year, Reuters reported.

Several Republican-led states challenged the rule in federal court. In June, a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule from being enforced in Texas, Louisiana, Utah and Mississippi until the ongoing lawsuit is resolved.  

In many states, people who are not regularly engaged in the firearm sales business can make private sales without a background check, and the sales can be initiated online.  

In a separate rule, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also attempted to tighten online background check rules for "ghost guns," which are assembled from kits into a functioning and untraceable gun. That rule, which would treat ghost guns the same as traditional firearms, is paused and awaiting a Supreme Court ruling. 

Although these rules aimed to make online gun sales stricter and increase background checks for those sales, they did not ban them outright. We rate this Promise Broken.