Bankruptcy law now shields gun owners' firearms from creditors
H.R. 4064 — Protecting Gun Owners in Bankruptcy Act · Filed by Claudia Tenney (R-NY) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Jun 20, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends federal bankruptcy law to allow debtors to protect up to $3,000 in firearms from creditors during bankruptcy proceedings. Currently, bankruptcy exemptions cover certain personal property (vehicles, household goods, tools of trade) but do not explicitly protect firearms. The bill adds firearms to the list of property a debtor can shield, treating them like other protected assets.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole function is to expand the list of personal property debtors may exempt from creditor claims in bankruptcy. It is a straightforward amendment to bankruptcy exemption law, not a deregulation, subsidy, or special carve-out for an industry.
What the text implies
- Exemption applies only to cases filed after enactment, creating a temporal cliff that may incentivize debtors to file bankruptcy before the law takes effect if they wish to avoid the firearm exemption (or after, if they wish to use it).
- The $3,000 cap is fixed and does not adjust for inflation, potentially eroding the exemption's value over time relative to firearm prices.
- Interaction with state bankruptcy exemptions is unclear from the text; some states have their own exemption schemes that may conflict or interact with this federal amendment.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Debtors gain a property protection that may preserve personal assets and dignity in financial distress; however, the exemption also reduces creditor recovery, which may increase costs for other creditors and potentially raise borrowing costs for future debtors. The trade-off between debtor relief and creditor rights is genuine and material.
Who stands to gain
- Individual debtors (non-corporate beneficiaries)
Named in the bill
11 U.S.C. § 522, Bankruptcy Code, Debtors, Creditors
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 4 Republicans.
- Jun 20, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jun 20, 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
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $429,548 in lobbying spend. A filing names 106 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 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Claudia Tenney, the sponsor, reported $1,189,908 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Association for Gun Rights — $429,548 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 (1,030 characters) on Sep 5, 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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