This is the second post in a series of six by Jonathan Goldstein adapting a set of administrative comment letters submitted in response to recent ATF rulemakings. The posts are designed to make the central legal and policy arguments more accessible to a broader audience while preserving the statutory, constitutional, and administrative-law issues raised in the underlying comments. Readers interested in the full legal argument, proposed regulatory text, and citations can find the comment letter that is the basis of this post here.
Federal law contains a firearms travel safe harbor. Section 926A of the Gun Control Act provides that a person who may lawfully possess and carry a firearm at the place of departure and the destination is entitled to transport it interstate if the firearm is unloaded and stored as the statute requires.
On paper, that sounds straightforward. In practice, it has been anything but. The problem is that real travel does not occur in a straight legal line. Travelers switch from cars to airplanes, airplanes to hotel shuttles, trains to rideshares, rental cars to airport terminals. They stop for food, fuel, illness, weather, vehicle trouble, and missed connections. A safe harbor that protects only an uninterrupted journey protects a fictional trip, not the one people actually take.
ATF’s proposed rule clarifying interstate transportation under § 926A is important because it recognizes this reality. The agency proposes to treat activities reasonably necessary to transportation—including temporary lodging, food, fuel, maintenance, emergencies, medical treatment, and transiting between modes—as part of “transport.” That is the right basic approach.
Revell’s Relevance
The case that best illustrates the problem is Revell v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Gregg Revell was traveling by air from Utah to Pennsylvania with an unloaded firearm checked in locked luggage. His travel was disrupted. He missed his connection, retrieved his luggage, spent the night at a hotel, and returned to the airport the next morning. When he again declared the firearm, he was arrested in New Jersey.
The Third Circuit acknowledged that Revell had been placed in a difficult situation through no fault of his own. But it still held that § 926A did not protect him because, during the overnight stay, the firearm and ammunition were accessible to him in the hotel room. The court suggested that stranded travelers could ask airport personnel or law enforcement to hold their firearm overnight.
Then came the revealing footnote 18, showing how out of touch the Third Circuit panel was: “Of course, this suggestion leaves unanswered the question of what the gun owner should do if the law enforcement officers decline to assist him. It may be hoped, however, that officers will not compound a blameless owner’s problems in that way.”
Hope is not a legal procedure or a safe harbor. It is certainly not basis for enforcing a right. The point is not merely academic. The practical weakness of the court’s suggestion was apparent even to those who would have to administer it. One law professor who taught Revell in a Firearms Law course recalled that a police officer in the class described the footnote as a fantasy: ordinary travelers do not have the practical ability to ask police to take custody of their firearms overnight, and any such accommodation, if it happened at all, would more plausibly be extended to a federal judge than to a stranded member of the public.
The problem with Revell is not just that the result was harsh. It is that the result made lawful interstate transport depend on contingencies the traveler cannot control: airline delays, local charging decisions, and the willingness of officers to devise an ad hoc solution. That is precisely the sort of uncertainty § 926A was enacted to prevent.
The text supports a broader reading
Section 926A says the firearm and ammunition must not be “readily accessible” or “directly accessible from the passenger compartment” of the transporting vehicle. That wording matters. If the statute were only about vehicles, the “readily accessible” language would do little independent work. A gun locked in a trunk is already not directly accessible from the passenger compartment. The more natural reading is that the statute has a general accessibility requirement and a vehicle-specific requirement.
That matters for airports, hotels, train stations, buses, and other transitions. A person moving a locked firearm case between lawful modes of transportation is still transporting it. The statute should not be read to protect the firearm while it is in the cargo hold but not while the traveler is checking it, collecting it, rechecking it, or waiting out an unavoidable disruption.
The same point can be put more simply: a law that protects a journey must protect the parts of the journey that make the journey possible.
Constitutional avoidance after Bruen
There is also a constitutional dimension. After New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court has made clear that the Second Amendment protects public carry for self-defense, subject to historically grounded regulation. Section 926A does not itself create the right to carry; it creates a federal safe harbor for transport between places where possession and carry are lawful. But if a traveler may lawfully possess and carry at both endpoints, a cramped interpretation that turns an involuntary stopover into a felony trap raises serious constitutional concerns.
That does not mean every stop during a trip must be protected. A traveler who abandons the journey for reasons unrelated to travel may fall outside the safe harbor. But a person stranded by weather, illness, mechanical failure, airline cancellation, or common-carrier error is different. The traveler has not chosen to enter the restrictive jurisdiction for ordinary local possession. The traveler is still in transit.
Constitutional avoidance therefore supports the broader reading. When a statute plausibly protects ordinary travel disruptions, courts and agencies should not choose a narrower reading that creates avoidable constitutional doubt.
Useful refinements
ATF’s proposed rule is sound in principle, but the final version should be as concrete as possible. Ambiguity in this area has criminal consequences.
First, the rule should identify documented disruptions that presumptively count as reasonably necessary interruptions: canceled or delayed flights, vehicle breakdowns, medical emergencies, weather closures, and similar events outside the traveler’s control. A rebuttable presumption—perhaps for interruptions under a fixed period such as 72 hours when supported by documentation—would help officers, prosecutors, courts, and travelers apply the rule in the real world.
Second, the rule should allocate burdens clearly. A traveler who has complied with storage rules and can document the disruption should not have to prove, at the roadside or airport counter, every element of necessity. If the government contends the stop was unrelated to travel, it should have to identify facts supporting that contention.
Third, the rule should clarify treatment of accessories. Firearms are often transported with magazines, optics, holsters, ammunition, cleaning equipment, or other related items. The safe harbor should not become a trap because a protected firearm is accompanied by common accessories, including ammunition types that may be lawful at the endpoints but restricted in a transit jurisdiction. The list of covered accessories should be illustrative, not exhaustive.
Fourth, Congress should consider adding a civil remedy. Section 926A currently operates mainly as a defense. That may help defeat a prosecution, but it does not fully remedy wrongful arrest, detention, property seizure, or litigation costs. ATF cannot create a private right of action by regulation. But it can identify the enforcement gap and recommend that Congress address it.
Safe passage must be administrable
A useful safe harbor must be usable before an arrest, not only after years of litigation. Travelers need to know what the law requires. Officers need to know when not to arrest. Prosecutors need administrable lines. Courts need a rule that reflects how travel works.
ATF’s proposal moves § 926A in that direction. The final rule should make clear that “transport” includes the ordinary and necessary incidents of transport. A federal safe passage law should not disappear at the airport hotel, the service plaza, or the baggage counter. It should protect a real trip.