FOPA (Firearm Owners Protection Act)

The **Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986** is a mixed-bag piece of federal firearms legislation that delivered wins and losses to gun owners in a single statute. The wins: the **Safe Passage provision** (18 U.S.C. § 926A), which allows firearms to be transported through hostile jurisdictions under specific conditions; prohibitions on a federal firearms registry; and limits on ATF inspections of FFL records. The losses: the **Hughes Amendment**, a last-minute floor amendment that closed the civilian-transferable machinegun registry on May 19, 1986. Every civilian-legal machinegun in the U.S. today was registered before that date, which is why transferable M16s cost as much as a house. FOPA is a law most gun owners interact with without knowing it — the Safe Passage provision is the reason your trunk-locked rifle in a box is legal when you drive through a state where you couldn't carry it.