Allegations of abuse by ATF inspectors after passage of the act arose from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and some FFL licensees.

A February 1982 report by the Senate subcommittee that studied the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution concluded: The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.

[1]: 12 The report also said that 75 percent of ATF prosecutions "were aimed at ordinary citizens who had neither criminal intent nor knowledge, but were enticed by agents into unknowing technical violations."

It suggested that reform of federal firearms law such as proposed in S. 1030 "would be largely self-enforcing" and "would enhance vital protection of constitutional and civil liberties of those Americans who choose to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Despite some controversy over whether the amendment should have been given a recorded vote,[5][6] the bill as a whole passed the House and the Senate, and was signed on May 19, 1986 by President Ronald Reagan to become Public Law 99-308, the Firearms Owners' Protection Act.

[7] On August 21, 2024, District Judge John W. Broomes, citing New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, threw out charges against a Kansas man for illegal machine gun possession as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

Nothing in this section expands or restricts the Secretary's authority to inquire into the disposition of any firearm in the course of a criminal investigation.Nevertheless, at one point the ATF's National Tracing Center (NTC) contained hundreds of millions of firearm tracing and registration records, and consisted of several databases; but as of May 2016, many of these databases have been deleted to fall inline with record deletion requirements, per the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

[18] The older Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits firearms ownership in the U.S. by certain categories of individuals thought to pose a threat to public safety.