The Gun Owner’s Bill of Rights

The Congress of the United States hereby finds:

1. The Second Amendment to the Constitution has been recognized by the United States Supreme Court in two recent decisions as establishing an individual liberty to own a firearm, a right that may not be impaired by any level of government.

2. Under the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and in order to meet the need of legislators and administrators across the nation for a sounder application of the principles established by the Second Amendment than present law provides, this national law is enacted, named The Federal Gun Owner’s Bill of Rights.

3. This law is intended to identify the aspects of gun ownership and use that are protected by federal law, but is not intended to restrain the individual States from enacting their own laws in further support of the right to gun ownership or in regulation thereof in compliance with the standards established herein and by the Second Amendment. The States are the primary source of law governing the ownership and use of firearms.

All persons lawfully within the United States shall enjoy the following individual liberties.

1. To own and use a firearm in defense of a life or one’s own home.

2. To carry a firearm openly in public wherever the possession of firearms is not prohibited by statute or lawful regulation.

3. Except in the case of fully automatic weapons, the individual ownership of firearms shall not be regulated by mandatory registration or by the licensing of firearm sales.

4. Other than in courthouses, the possession of firearms shall not be restricted solely because a firearm is being carried in a common area of a public building.

5. Regulation of firearms and munitions in the form of fees, direct taxes and composition and storage requirements shall not have the effect of substantially impairing the opportunity to keep and bear a firearm.

This enactment shall have no effect on existing laws in the following ways.

1. Requirements of bail or probation/parole/suspension for offenders charged or convicted of a felony or of a misdemeanor involving violence.

2. Limits on the possession of firearms, including prohibitions, by minors and by persons substantially affected by a mental derangement.

3. The freedom of private property owners and their tenants to restrict the possession of firearms on their property in any way they choose.

4. The prohibition of weapons beyond firearms in their destructive capacity.