18 U.S.C. § 922 Explained: Prohibited Persons, Penalties

18 U.S.C. § 922 is the core federal statute defining who cannot legally possess or receive a firearm, and what a seller or dealer cannot legally do. Prosecutors use it most often as the felon-in-possession law, but it reaches nine separate categories of prohibited people and a parallel set of seller-side rules.

This article covers the federal Gun Control Act framework in Chapter 44 of Title 18, centered on 18 U.S.C. § 922's prohibited-conduct rules and 18 U.S.C. § 924's penalty provisions. It does not cover state firearm laws, which vary by state and layer on top of these federal rules, or the separate National Firearms Act licensing regime for items like suppressors and short-barreled rifles. For how a state protective order interacts with the federal ban discussed below, see Restraining Order Laws by State.

Information last verified against primary federal sources on August 12, 2026. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

What Makes Someone a "Prohibited Person" Under Section 922(g)

Section 922(g) makes it a federal crime for a person in one of nine categories to ship, transport, possess, or receive any firearm or ammunition in or affecting interstate commerce. The ammunition ban is not a lesser or separate rule; it applies on exactly the same terms as the firearm ban. The nine categories are defined in 922(g)(1) through 922(g)(9), and the government must prove the person actually fits one of them, not merely that they own a gun.

• 922(g)(1): convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year.
• 922(g)(2): a fugitive from justice.
• 922(g)(3): an unlawful user of, or addicted to, a controlled substance.
• 922(g)(4): adjudicated a mental defective, or committed to a mental institution.
• 922(g)(5): an alien unlawfully in the United States, or, with narrow exceptions, admitted on certain nonimmigrant visas.
• 922(g)(6): discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions.
• 922(g)(7): renounced U.S. citizenship.
• 922(g)(8): subject to a qualifying domestic violence or child protective order, one issued after notice and a hearing that restrains harassment, threats, or contact with an intimate partner or child, and either includes a finding of a credible threat to physical safety or by its terms prohibits the use of physical force.
• 922(g)(9): convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

The alien-status category in 922(g)(5) has statutory exceptions for certain nonimmigrant visa holders, for example some hunting-license holders and specific law enforcement or diplomatic categories under 922(y). Those exceptions are narrow and fact-specific, so anyone evaluating a particular immigration status against this rule should review the current statutory text directly or consult a qualified attorney.

The Seller's Mirror-Image Duty: Section 922(d)

Section 922(d) targets the other side of the transaction. It is unlawful for anyone, not only a licensed dealer, to sell, give, transport, or otherwise dispose of a firearm or ammunition to a person the seller knows or has reasonable cause to believe falls into one of nine categories that mirror 922(g)'s list almost exactly: indicted or convicted felons, fugitives, unlawful drug users, people adjudicated mentally defective, unlawful aliens, dishonorable discharges, renounced citizens, people subject to a qualifying protective order, and misdemeanor domestic violence convicts.

This is why a licensed dealer runs every sale through the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System: a completed check is how a dealer establishes that it did not know, and had no reasonable cause to believe, the buyer was prohibited. A private, unlicensed seller has no access to that system, but the same knowing-or-reasonable-cause standard still applies to them under 922(d).

Straw Purchases and False Statements: Section 922(a)(6) and the Newer Section 932

Section 922(a)(6) makes it a crime to knowingly make a false statement, or exhibit false identification, in connection with buying a firearm or ammunition from a licensed dealer, when that statement is material to whether the sale is lawful. In practice, this is the statute behind ATF Form 4473 prosecutions, most often involving the question asking whether the person filling out the form is the actual buyer of the firearm.

A straw purchase happens when someone buys a firearm on Form 4473 in their own name while actually acquiring it on behalf of someone else who is the true intended recipient. Lying about that on the form violates 922(a)(6), whether or not the eventual recipient turns out to be a prohibited person. That is different from an ordinary gift or loan: buying a firearm as your own property and later deciding to give or lend it to a family member does not, by itself, involve the false statement that defines a straw purchase.

The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act added a second, more targeted straw-purchase statute, 18 U.S.C. § 932, that does not depend on a false Form 4473 answer. It makes it a crime to knowingly purchase a firearm on behalf of someone who is a 922(d)-prohibited person, or who intends to use it in a felony, an act of terrorism, or drug trafficking, or who intends to resell or transfer it to such a person. Section 932 carries up to 15 years, or up to 25 years if the purchaser knew, or had reasonable cause to believe, the firearm would be used in a violent felony, terrorism, or drug trafficking.

Licensing and Interstate Transfer Rules Under Section 922(a)

Section 922(a) also regulates the business of firearms, separate from who may possess one. Anyone engaged in the business of importing, manufacturing, or dealing in firearms must hold a federal license, and licensed dealers, importers, and manufacturers may not transfer a firearm across state lines to anyone other than another licensee, subject to narrow return-and-repair and mail exceptions.

Section 922(a) separately bars an unlicensed person from acquiring a firearm outside their state of residence and bringing it home, with an exception for a firearm lawfully acquired by bequest or intestate succession, and it bars unlicensed interstate transport of destructive devices, machineguns, and short-barreled shotguns or rifles absent specific authorization from the Attorney General.

Nothing in 922(a) treats the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, or other U.S. possessions differently than a state; the same dealer-licensing and interstate-transfer rules apply there, layered on top of each jurisdiction's own civil process, such as DC's civil protection order process, where a 922(g)(8) firearm prohibition can also come into play.

Penalties: What Section 924 Actually Sets

18 U.S.C. § 924 sets the criminal penalties for violating 922, and the penalty depends on exactly which provision was violated, not on 922 as a single undifferentiated offense.

• Up to 15 years under 924(a)(8) for a 922(g) or 922(d) violation. This is a post-2022 change from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act; it replaced the older, lower 10-year cap that used to apply to basic felon-in-possession cases.
• Up to 10 years under 924(a)(2) for a knowing violation of 922(a)(6) (false statement or straw purchase), plus several related subsections, (h), (i), (j), and (o).
• Up to 5 years under 924(a)(1)(D), the general catch-all penalty for other willful violations of Chapter 44. Unlicensed dealing under 922(a)(1) is punished, by elimination rather than an explicit statutory cross-reference, under this catch-all provision, since it is not covered by 924(a)(1)(A) through (C) or by 924(a)(2)'s enumerated subsections.
• A 15-year mandatory minimum, not a cap, under 924(e), the Armed Career Criminal Act, for a 922(g) violator who has three prior convictions for a violent felony or serious drug offense committed on different occasions.

When Does an Old Conviction Stop Counting? Section 921(a)(20) and Restoration of Rights

Not every past conviction disqualifies someone under 922(g)(1), and not every disqualification is permanent. 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20) defines what counts as a disqualifying conviction for federal firearms purposes: state law controls whether something is technically a conviction, certain business-regulatory offenses and low-level state misdemeanors punishable by two years or less are excluded from the definition entirely, and a conviction that has been expunged, set aside, or pardoned, or for which civil rights have been restored, is not disqualifying at all, unless the order granting that relief expressly states the person may still not possess firearms.

That last clause is the part people most often miss. Whether an old conviction still counts against someone federally depends on the specific wording of the state order that expunged it, pardoned it, or restored rights, not on the general fact that time has passed or a record was sealed. Some states' restoration mechanisms carry exactly that firearms carve-out, or restore only some civil rights, like voting, without addressing firearms at all. See Wyoming's expungement statutes for an example of how one state's order language works, and how long a felony stays on someone's record for the state-by-state starting point.

The Constitutional Landscape: Bruen, Rahimi, and the Felon-in-Possession Circuit Split

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, decided by the Supreme Court on June 23, 2022 in a 6-3 opinion by Justice Thomas, replaced the two-step means-end scrutiny framework lower courts had used for Second Amendment claims. Under Bruen's test, if the Second Amendment's plain text covers the conduct at issue, that conduct is presumptively protected, and the government must show the regulation is consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. Bruen struck down New York's discretionary permitting scheme while approving objective licensing standards, and it reopened the constitutionality of many existing federal gun laws, including 922(g), to fresh challenge.

United States v. Rahimi, decided June 21, 2024 in an 8-1 opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, resolved one piece of that reopened question. The Court rejected a facial Second Amendment challenge to 922(g)(8) and held that when a court has found, after notice and a hearing, that a person subject to a domestic violence restraining order poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner or child, that person may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment, grounding the ruling in the historical tradition of surety and going-armed laws. The case itself arose from a Texas protective order. Concurring justices stressed that the holding was narrow, resolving only the facial challenge and leaving open questions such as whether a judicial credible-threat finding is constitutionally required in every case. For more on the decision, see recordinglaw.com's explainer on the Rahimi ruling.

Rahimi settled 922(g)(8). It did not settle 922(g)(1), the basic felon ban, and that question has split the federal circuits. The Third Circuit, sitting en banc, held in Range v. Attorney General (December 2024, 13-2) that 922(g)(1) was unconstitutional as applied to Bryan Range, whose only disqualifying conviction was a decades-old, misdemeanor-level Pennsylvania food-stamp fraud false statement, reasoning that the government had not shown the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation supported disarming him specifically. The government did not seek further Supreme Court review, and the ruling became final in April 2025 when the cert deadline lapsed. The Ninth Circuit, also sitting en banc, reached the opposite result in United States v. Duarte (May 9, 2025), upholding 922(g)(1) even as applied to a felon with only nonviolent priors, aligning with the Fourth, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits. The Supreme Court denied review in Duarte on January 20, 2026, leaving the circuit split unresolved, with Range already settled, binding Third Circuit law by that point. This means whether a felon-in-possession as-applied challenge can succeed currently depends heavily on which circuit the case is in, and courts have not settled a single national rule.

Marijuana, Domestic Violence Misdemeanors, and the Fastest-Moving Corners of Section 922

922(g)(3), the ban on unlawful drug users and addicts possessing firearms, has become the newest constitutional battleground. In United States v. Hemani, decided June 18, 2026, the Supreme Court held, with all nine justices agreeing on the judgment, that prosecuting a defendant under 922(g)(3) based solely on marijuana use, with no individualized finding that his drug use made him presently dangerous, was unconstitutional as applied to him under the Second Amendment. The Court explicitly did not strike down 922(g)(3) itself, and left open prosecutions supported by individualized proof of dangerousness, such as possession while actively intoxicated or other evidence specific to the person. For a fuller look at the decision, see recordinglaw.com's explainer on the Hemani ruling.

The federal status of marijuana itself is also moving. The Department of Justice moved marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act in a final rule signed April 20, 2026. In response, ATF has circulated a proposed, not yet final, revision to Form 4473's Question 21.e that would stop treating state-authorized medical marijuana use as automatically disqualifying; the public comment period on that proposal closed August 6, 2026, and as of publication ATF has not announced when, or whether, it will finalize the change. Recreational marijuana use remains federally prohibiting under 922(g)(3) regardless of state legality, and medical marijuana patients in states like Delaware and New Jersey currently face that same federal restriction rather than an independent state-law firearms bar; neither state's own law disqualifies a registered patient, and federal law plus dealers' compliance with it are what stands in the way. Delaware's governor vetoed a 2022 bill that would have gone further and expressly protected registered patients' state gun rights, so patients there remain reliant on federal law shifting rather than any state-level protection.

On the domestic violence side, 922(g)(9) bars anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from possessing a firearm, with no felony required. In Voisine v. United States (2016), the Supreme Court held that a state misdemeanor domestic violence conviction based on reckless, not only knowing or intentional, conduct still qualifies to trigger the 922(g)(9) ban, reasoning that Congress wrote the definition broadly enough to reach the roughly three dozen states that define these misdemeanors to include reckless assault.

Common Misconceptions About Section 922

My felony was expunged, or I got a pardon, or my rights were restored, so I can automatically own a gun again. Not automatically. Under 921(a)(20), expungement, pardon, or civil-rights restoration does remove the federal disability, unless the order itself expressly states the person may still not possess firearms. Many states' restoration mechanisms include exactly that carve-out, or restore only some rights without addressing firearms, so this needs individualized, state-by-state review of the actual order.

I have a state medical marijuana card, so federal gun law doesn't apply to me. As of publication this is not settled in the patient's favor. Marijuana was rescheduled to Schedule III in April 2026, but 922(g)(3) still criminalizes unlawful drug user status, and ATF's proposed carve-out for state-authorized medical use is still pending, not final. Hemani only bars prosecuting sole marijuana use without an individualized dangerousness showing; it does not hold that marijuana users generally may possess firearms.

A restraining order can't take away my gun rights unless I'm convicted of a crime. That is incorrect. 922(g)(8) attaches to a civil protective order meeting specific criteria, with no criminal conviction required at all, and Rahimi upheld that framework in 2024. Separately, 922(g)(9) covers an actual misdemeanor domestic violence conviction, and under Voisine even a conviction based on reckless conduct counts.

Felon-in-possession bans are now unconstitutional after Bruen and Rahimi, so felons can just challenge their case and win. That overstates the current state of the law. There is a real, currently unresolved circuit split, with the Third Circuit's Range decision going one way for a narrow, old, nonviolent fact pattern and the Ninth Circuit's Duarte decision and several other circuits going the other way even for nonviolent felons. The Supreme Court denied review in Duarte rather than resolving the split. An as-applied win is fact-specific, jurisdiction-dependent, and far from guaranteed.

Straw purchasing is just a minor paperwork violation. It is prosecuted as a serious federal felony under two overlapping statutes, 922(a)(6) with 924(a)(2), up to 10 years, and since the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the dedicated straw-purchase statute 18 U.S.C. § 932, up to 15 years, or up to 25 if tied to a violent felony, terrorism, or drug trafficking.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about the federal firearm-prohibition statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922, and its penalty companion, 18 U.S.C. § 924, as in effect and verified against primary federal sources on the date noted above. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. The constitutional landscape around 922(g), particularly 922(g)(1) and 922(g)(3), is actively litigated and can change quickly. Confirm current status with the current statutory text, recent case law in the relevant circuit, or a licensed attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: August 12, 2026.