Fact Check: Shannon Watts Claims No Background Check Required for Long Gun Purchases in Texas

CLAIM: Mike Bloomberg gun control affiliate Shannon Watts claimed on April 29 that there is no background check required for the purchase of rifles and other long guns in Texas.

VERDICT: False, as pertaining to retail gun sales. Point-of-sale background checks for retail gun sales–handguns and long guns–are required by federal law regardless of the state in which the sale occurs, and this includes Texas.

Watts and other gun controllers consistently push background checks as a means of reducing crime or stopping high-profile shootings from taking place, but the United States has had point-of-sale background checks since 1998.

The FBI performs a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background check on every retail gun buyer, regardless of whether the gun they want to buy is new or used, and it does not matter whether it is a handgun or a long gun.

The process for undergoing the background check entails filling out an ATF form 4473, after which the Federal Firearms License holder (FFL) calls in the information to the FBI and a would-be purchaser’s criminal and mental background is checked.

This is the law whether one buys a gun in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Arizona, Texas, or any other state in the Union. (Exceptions are that in some states, concealed carry permit holders do not go through a full background check with each gun purchase because they go through periodic background checks for the permit. Either way, they undergo a background check.)

Watts’ tweet claiming there is no background check for long gun purchases in Texas was linked to an October 2022 New York Times article focused on Texas’ adoption of constitutional carry for handguns. The article does not deal with the sale of long guns, and constitutional carry does not end the requirement that retail handgun buyers undergo a background check.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.