United States S 1370: GOSAFE Act

Bill Text

II
119TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION S. 1370
To amend title 18, United States Code, to restrict the possession of certain
firearms, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
APRIL 9, 2025
Mr. HEINRICH (for himself, Mr. KING, Mr. KELLY, Mr. BENNET, Mr. KAINE,
Ms. DUCKWORTH, Mr. WHITEHOUSE, Mrs. SHAHEEN, Mr. PADILLA, Mr.
VAN HOLLEN, Mr. FETTERMAN, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. WYDEN, and Ms.
HIRONO) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred
to the Committee on Finance
A BILL
To amend title 18, United States Code, to restrict the
possession of certain firearms, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Gas-Operated Semi- 4
Automatic Firearms Exclusion Act’’ or the ‘‘GOSAFE 5
Act’’. 6
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SEC. 2. RESTRICTIONS. 1
(a) DEFINITIONS.—Section 921(a) of title 18, United 2
States Code, is amended by adding at the end the fol-3
lowing: 4
‘‘(39) The term ‘semi-automatic firearm’ means any 5
firearm that— 6
‘‘(A) upon initiating the firing sequence, fires 7
the first chambered cartridge and uses a portion of 8
the energy of the firing cartridge to— 9
‘‘(i) extract the expended cartridge case; 10
‘‘(ii) chamber the next round; and 11
‘‘(iii) prepare the firing mechanism to fire 12
again; 13
‘‘(B) requires a separate pull, release, push, or 14
initiation of the trigger to fire each cartridge; and 15
‘‘(C) is not a machinegun. 16
‘‘(40) The term ‘cycle the action’, with respect to a 17
firearm, means to extract the fired cartridge case, cham-18
ber the next cartridge, and prepare the firing mechanism 19
to fire again. 20
‘‘(41) The term ‘gas-operated’, with respect to a 21
semi-automatic firearm, means any firearm that harnesses 22
or traps a portion of the high-pressure gas from a fired 23
cartridge to cycle the action using— 24
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‘‘(A) a long stroke piston, where gas is vented 1
from the barrel to a piston that is mechanically fixed 2
to the bolt group and moves to cycle the action; 3
‘‘(B) a short stroke piston, where gas is vented 4
from the barrel to a piston that moves separately 5
from the bolt group so that the energy is imparted 6
through a gas piston to cycle the action; 7
‘‘(C) a system that traps and vents gas from ei-8
ther the barrel or the chamber to directly strike or 9
impinge the bolt, bolt carrier, or slide assembly, to 10
unlock and cycle the action; 11
‘‘(D) a hybrid system that combines elements of 12
a system described in subparagraph (C) with a sys-13
tem described in subparagraph (A) or (B) to capture 14
gas vented from the barrel to cycle the action; 15
‘‘(E) a blowback-operated system that directly 16
utilizes the expanding gases of the ignited propellant 17
powder acting on the cartridge case to drive the 18
breechblock or breech bolt rearward; or 19
‘‘(F) a recoil-operated system that utilizes the 20
recoil force to unlock the breech bolt and then to 21
complete the cycle of extracting, ejecting, and re-22
loading. 23
‘‘(42) The term ‘large capacity ammunition feeding 24
device’— 25
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‘‘(A) means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, 1
helical feeding device, or similar device, including 2
any such device joined or coupled with another in 3
any manner, that— 4
‘‘(i) has an overall capacity of, or that can 5
be readily restored, altered, or converted to ac-6
cept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition; and 7
‘‘(ii) is not permanently fixed; and 8
‘‘(B) does not include any device designed to 9
accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 or 10
less caliber rimfire ammunition.’’. 11
(b) PROHIBITIONS.—Section 922 of title 18, United 12
States Code, is amended— 13
(1) by inserting after subsection (u) the fol-14
lowing: 15
‘‘(v)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) or (4), 16
it shall be unlawful for any person to import, sell, manu-17
facture, transfer, receive, or possess, in or affecting inter-18
state or foreign commerce, a firearm, device, or combina-19
tion of parts described in subparagraphs (A) through (H), 20
knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that— 21
‘‘(A) the firearm is included on the list of pro-22
hibited gas-operated semi-automatic firearms de-23
scribed in section 935(a); 24
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‘‘(B) the modified non-prohibited firearm, as 1
modified, operates as a firearm included on t