Sources and methodology

What counts as a source

• The United States Code, prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. On the review date, that office’s site said the online Code was current through Public Law 119-120 (October 7, 2026).¹
• Public laws and the Statutes at Large, as posted by the Government Publishing Office on govinfo.gov.
• Opinions of the Supreme Court in the United States Reports, posted by the Library of Congress, or the Court’s slip opinions on supremecourt.gov when that is the citable copy.
• The August 5, 2026 opinion of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, posted on govinfo.gov, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives guidance page dated from its October 9, 2026 open letter.²
• The National Archives transcription of the Bill of Rights.³
• State codes and legislatures linked on the state-law page. The Mississippi Code link is the one the Mississippi Legislature’s own site publishes.⁴

Section-level pages on uscode.house.gov were not available in that site’s temporary format on the review date. Notes therefore link a reading copy at the Legal Information Institute, a nongovernmental publisher of the Code. The citation is to the United States Code section. The Institute’s page is not an independent authority. If the reading copy and a later official publication differ, the official publication controls.

What a note is doing

A superscript number matches a note at the bottom of the page. The note names the section, the public law, or the case, and links the government’s copy when one is posted. A paraphrase is not a quotation. Quotations are set off and attributed to the syllabus or the opinion. Syllabi are prepared by the Reporter of Decisions. The Bruen and Rahimi syllabi say a syllabus is not part of the opinion.⁵

What this site leaves out

• Crime, injury, ownership, and licensing counts. Those figures are omitted rather than estimated.
• A state-by-state score of who requires a permit, who allows unlicensed carry, or who has a particular weapon statute. The state page links the official text instead.
• Compilations published by advocacy organizations. They are not used as authority for a legal claim.
• Regulatory forms, sentencing ranges, and agency rulings, other than the October 9, 2026 ATF guidance that the federal page describes and labels as an enforcement statement.

The National Firearms Act’s making and transfer taxes changed in Public Law 119-21, and ATF then announced an enforcement position. Those developments are described on the federal page as statute and as agency guidance, separately. Guidance is not a repeal. Another court can disagree with the district court opinion the guidance discusses.²

What this site is not

It is not legal advice. It does not apply a statute to a person, a firearm, or a transfer. It does not speak for Congress, a court, ATF, or any state. The enacted text and the opinion control if this site’s sentence is narrower, broader, or simply wrong.

Corrections

A correction should identify the page, the sentence, and the official source that contradicts it. Corrections can be sent by opening an issue. The visible review date changes when the text is checked again.

Notes

1. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, “Search & Browse,” uscode.house.gov/browse.html, consulted October 14, 2026. ↩
2. Silencer Shop Foundation v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, No. 6:25-cv-056-H (N.D. Tex. Aug. 5, 2026), opinion (govinfo). Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “Update to NFA Transfer Guidance,” atf.gov. ↩
3. National Archives, “The Bill of Rights: A Transcription,” archives.gov. ↩
4. Mississippi Legislature, legislature.ms.gov, which links to the Mississippi Code. ↩
5. Syllabus notes in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen and United States v. Rahimi, cited on the cases page. ↩