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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30618 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

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Not aware of the law here: what's the legal status of illegal immigrants possessing firearms?

Federally speaking, there's a specific statute prohibiting possession (or sale to) to illegal aliens, or to legal aliens on non-immigration visas (with a tiny number of exceptions not relevant here):

It shall be unlawful for any person... who, being an alien... is illegally or unlawfully in the United States... to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

The ATF has taken an unusually even-handed approach to this matter and does not consider the bare possession charge to apply to nonimmigrant aliens (though they can only purchase lawfully from private sellers), but it defines those who have overstayed their visa as specifically not in nonimmigrant status.

Theoretically speaking, this only applies to firearms or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate/foreign commerce, but I wouldn't be my dog's life on the ATF making a distinction.

In practice, prosecutions are rare.

Constitutionally speaking, there's been some recent cases about how much the illegal immigrant must know that they are illegal, (caveat: I can't find if he was retried; the man was almost certainly guilty under the new standard of proof, but that doesn't always mean much). The prohibition itself hasn't made it to SCOTUS, but it's been pretty universally upheld by appeals courts. Some states prohibit possession by even federal-permitted lawful aliens (or even non-citizen US nationals), and those are on sketchier constitutional ground in my opinion, but they've also been difficult to challenge for procedural reasons.

Thanks!

I wonder what that means for the legality of the "I am visiting the US and want to shoot a gun" folks. I've seen billboard ads for "shoot a machine gun" in at least Vegas and some red-state cities.

I guess that might not be legal "possession", though.

Renting a gun at the range is legal and not considered possession as long as it stays at the range.

One of the nonimmigrant visa tiny exceptions is :

admitted to the United States for lawful hunting or sporting purposes or is in possession of a hunting license or permit lawfully issued in the United States.

It's... much easier to argue for recognized sports or permitted hunting than for machine gun tourism, though I'm not aware of any prosecutions in either case.

"sporting purposes"

"Why yes officer, there is a bullseye downrange somewhere. It's very rare one of our new shooters actually hits it, though."

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