Background Checks on Private Gun Sales by State

Federal law requires a background check only when a licensed dealer sells. This layer shows whether the state also requires checks when private individuals sell to each other.

Source: State statutes (official legislature code sites), state police / attorney general pages and court orders; citation for every item is in the popup. Compiled by Map the Block, law as of 2026-10-06

Coverage: All 50 states and DC

How it was checked: Drafted from the statutes, then checked against official pages fetched for this layer (state code sites, state police and county pages, court orders, bill-status pages): 80 automated text checks passed across 29 states and 12 more items were settled by reading the page; 7 draft values were corrected that way (WV permitless age, CT long-gun age, MN waiting period, NM injunction scope, ND and MT carry rules, WA training requirement). All states were also compared item by item with a separate summary table (283 comparisons): 3 differences remain, each explained in the report. RAND's database and NCSL refused or block AI crawlers, so neither was used; CA, HI and DC code sites refused or block us, so those states rest on statute citations plus the table cross-check. Law as of 2026-10-06.