Congress raises gun-purchase age to 21 for high-capacity rifles
H.R. 2368 — Raise the Age Act of 2025 · Filed by Glenn Ivey (D-MD) · 176 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 26, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill raises the minimum age for purchasing semiautomatic centerfire rifles and shotguns with high-capacity magazines (over 5 rounds) from 18 to 21, while keeping the 18-year-old threshold for other rifles and shotguns. Active-duty military and full-time law enforcement are exempt. The bill also requires the FBI to report on how its public access line shares information with field offices.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a straightforward age-restriction on the sale of certain firearms, a regulatory measure designed to reduce access to high-capacity semiautomatic weapons by minors. The FBI reporting requirement is a secondary transparency provision.
What the text implies
- The 5-round magazine threshold creates a bright-line distinction between regulated and unregulated semiautomatic rifles, potentially incentivizing manufacturers to design weapons with fixed 5-round or smaller magazines to avoid the 21-year-old restriction.
- The exemption for 'full-time employees' authorized to carry firearms may create ambiguity about part-time or auxiliary law-enforcement personnel (e.g., reserve officers, campus security), potentially leaving gaps in the regulatory scheme.
- The bill does not address straw purchases or private sales, meaning the age restriction applies only to licensed dealers—enforcement depends on compliance and detection of circumvention.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill restricts access to high-capacity semiautomatic rifles for minors, a public-safety measure supported by evidence linking age restrictions to reduced mass-shooting risk. The FBI reporting requirement adds transparency to law-enforcement information-sharing. The exemptions for military and law enforcement are narrow and justified by operational necessity.
Named in the bill
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), House Committee on the Judiciary, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Armed Forces, Federal firearms licensees, State and local law enforcement
Where it stands
176 cosponsors: 176 Democrats.
- Mar 26, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Mar 26, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $509,548 in lobbying spend. A filing names 88 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Glenn Ivey, the sponsor, reported $377,250 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Association for Gun Rights — $429,548 on 2 filings
- Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence — $80,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,141 characters) on Aug 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 22, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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