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ATF Updates “Brady Permit Chart,” Reduces Need for Redundant NICS Checks

Monday, June 2, 2025

ATF Updates “Brady Permit Chart,” Reduces Need for Redundant NICS Checks

We have been reporting on recent reforms by ATF to make its operations more transparent, professional, and public safety focused and less openly hostile to law abiding gun owners and the industries that serve them. Continuing this trend was the May 23 announcement of revisions to the so-called Brady Permit Chart, which illustrates which firearm-related credentials ATF considers an acceptable alternative to a NICS check for firearm transfers. By our count, there was a net pick-up of three jurisdictions issuing credentials that qualify for this important exception.

A closer look at the chart, moreover, reveals contradictions that undercut anti-gun states’ complaints about how they would be forced to accept the laxer permitting standards of pro-gun jurisdictions, should H.R. 38 or other national reciprocity legislation become law. Indeed, virtually none of the most anti-gun states issue qualifying permits, indicating that it’s actually those states whose permitting standards deserve closer scrutiny.

In general, there is a requirement under federal law that a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) run a NICS inquiry any time the FFL transfers a firearm to an unlicensed individual. This requirement does not apply, however, if the transferee presents the FFL with:

a license or permit that …allows such other person to possess or acquire a firearm; … was issued not more than 5 years earlier by the State in which the transfer is to take place; and … the law of the State provides that such a permit is to be issued only after an authorized government official has verified that the information available to such official does not indicate that possession of a firearm by such other person would be in violation of law.

This reflects the commonsense judgement that a person responsible enough to obtain, for example, a concealed carry permit that includes a NICS check should be relieved of the burden of undergoing additional checks when obtaining a firearm within the next five years. Evidence backs this up, as concealed carry permit holders, as a population, have consistently proven themselves to be more law-abiding than the general population.

Yet, as NRA-ILA pointed out in its memorandum to Attorney General Pam Bondi on implementing President Trump’s Executive Order Protecting Second Amendment Rights, ATF had not been complying with the letter or spirit of the NICS Exemption provision:

Almost every state issues concealed carry permits that could potentially qualify for this exemption. Yet ATF’s determinations about which permits do or do not qualify are inconsistent, opaque, and often rely on criteria not explicitly mentioned in the statutory language. This defeats the congressional intent of the license exception. ATF should be required to publish its criteria and to use only the statutory language to guide its decisions. It should also conduct a review of all state concealed carry or other firearm-related licenses or permits to determine if they meet the statutory language.

With its update, ATF appears to have taken NRA-ILA’s feedback seriously. In addition to reviewing the prior list, ATF published an open letter explaining its process for determining which permits qualify. According to that letter:

the laws of the state must provide that the authority issuing the permit is required to check available information, including conducting a NICS background check, and that the issuing authority may not issue a permit to anyone when the available information indicates the applicant is prohibited from possessing firearms under federal, state, or local law.

It also clarified that permits valid for a period of greater than five years can still qualify, so long as no more than five years have expired since the date the permit was issued or renewed. ATF’s latest chart helpfully includes notes on what it considers the deficiencies in the states that do not qualify.

In total, 28 states and Puerto Rico issue qualifying credentials; in almost every case these are concealed carry licenses. By ATF’s standards, this means that the states are running NICS checks before issuance or renewal and that they do not issue permits to individuals prohibited by law.

Ironically, almost all of America’s most stridently anti-gun states and territories do not meet these relatively modest standards, including California, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. Yet it is these states that typically protest the loudest about other states’ permitting practices.

Some of these anti-gun states disallow NICS exempt transactions by statute, leading one to wonder if they trust the credentials issued under their own laws. Other of these states failed ATF’s review because officials are empowered in some cases to issue permits to individual who are prohibited under federal law.

Prior “may-issue” states have a long tradition of issuing concealed carry permits as a form of status symbol, regardless of public safety considerations. Indeed, there have been repeated federal corruption cases against licensing officials in New York City, who among other things have been convicted of accepting bribes to issue concealed carry licenses to applicants with violent criminal histories. Meanwhile, “ordinary,” law-abiding citizens who could not distinguish their “need” for a permit from the general public were disqualified.

Theoretically, that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), in which the U.S. Supreme Court invalided New York’s may-issue licensing scheme under the Second Amendment. Yet New York and other may-issue jurisdictions responded to that decision by removing the licensing official’s discretion on the applicant’s “need” for a permit in favor of his or her “suitability” to receive one.

Thus, applicants are subject to unconstitutional requirements like character references, personal interviews, and intrusive and prolonged investigation of their personal lives. In Los Angeles, this process has resulted in delays of over a year in applicants’ receiving a decision on their permits. The situation is so egregious that DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has opened an investigation to determine if the Los Angeles County Sheriff is violating applicants’ Second Amendment rights.

Yet even someone who passes this gauntlet can’t take advantage of the NICS exemption in California. Perhaps this is because the California legislature knows as well as anyone that the point of the process isn’t to determine who is a public safety risk but merely to discourage as many people as possible from even applying in the first place.

Fortunately, Americans now have more opportunities than ever to bypass NICS checks when acquiring firearms at retail, freeing up time for themselves and the busy FFLs that serve them and lowering barriers to the exercise of their rights. 

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North Carolina: Update on Permitless Carry

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

North Carolina: Update on Permitless Carry

Last week the North Carolina General Assembly briefly returned from recess and re-referred Senate Bill 50, Freedom to Carry NC, to the House Rules Committee.

Federal Court Strikes Down Biden Administration’s “Engaged in the Business” Rule in NRA Case

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Federal Court Strikes Down Biden Administration’s “Engaged in the Business” Rule in NRA Case

Yesterday, in Butler v. Bondi, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its statutory authority by issuing its 2024 Final Rule expanding ...

First Affirmative Lawsuit in Support of Gun Owners Filed by Trump’s DOJ

News  

Monday, October 6, 2025

First Affirmative Lawsuit in Support of Gun Owners Filed by Trump’s DOJ

California officials’ egregious foot-dragging over the issuance of carry permits has finally attracted the ire of the federal Department of Justice (DOJ). 

President Trump’s GOP Leads Polling on Crime and Guns, To No Surprise

News  

Monday, October 6, 2025

President Trump’s GOP Leads Polling on Crime and Guns, To No Surprise

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed that Americans know the President Donald Trump-led Republican Party has a better plan than their Democratic Party opponents on crime and gun control.

NRA Files Amicus Brief in Fifth Circuit Case Challenging the Federal Switchblade Act

Friday, October 3, 2025

NRA Files Amicus Brief in Fifth Circuit Case Challenging the Federal Switchblade Act

Yesterday, the National Rifle Association filed an amicus brief in Knife Rights, Inc. v. Bondi, urging the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas’s decision upholding the Federal ...

Trump Administration Repeals Biden Era Firearms Export Crackdown

News  

Monday, October 6, 2025

Trump Administration Repeals Biden Era Firearms Export Crackdown

Last Monday, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the U.S. Department of Commerce published a final rule that reversed a crackdown on the commercial export of firearms from the U.S. to other countries.

Trust in Mass Media Craters to New Lows, in Single Digits With Republicans

News  

Monday, October 6, 2025

Trust in Mass Media Craters to New Lows, in Single Digits With Republicans

There’s an old saying that rings especially true to Second Amendment supporters: If you don’t read the news, you’re uninformed.

Alphabet Eases the Reins on Censorship; Will Gun Content Eventually Benefit?

News  

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Alphabet Eases the Reins on Censorship; Will Gun Content Eventually Benefit?

With the free speech debate recently co-opted by one TV host’s use of false and incendiary remarks about his political opponents, it might have been easy to miss another important First Amendment story last week. 

Canada’s Public Safety Minister on Gun Ban & Confiscation: “Don’t Ask Me to Explain the Logic”

News  

Monday, September 29, 2025

Canada’s Public Safety Minister on Gun Ban & Confiscation: “Don’t Ask Me to Explain the Logic”

There have been multiple developments on the Canadian gun grab and ban in the last few days, but the most astounding has got to be a leaked bombshell recording of the Liberal Public Safety Minister, ...

U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to Hawaii’s Private Property Default Carry Ban

Friday, October 3, 2025

U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to Hawaii’s Private Property Default Carry Ban

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari in Wolford v. Lopez, a challenge to Hawaii’s law forbidding carry on private property open to the public (such as restaurants, gas stations, and grocery stores) ...

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NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.