Despite President Joe Biden's promise to end the online sale of firearms and ammunition, his administration did little to advance that policy.

Congress passed no legislation to ban online gun sales under Biden's watch. 

Federal law mandates that people who sell firearms repeatedly and primarily to earn a profit must obtain a federal firearm license. Federally licensed dealers must conduct background checks for gun sales, including those conducted online. Guns sold online by licensed dealers must be shipped to a local licensed dealer. 

The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act expanded the definition of who should register as a federal firearms dealer, but did not ban online sales. In April, the Justice Department finalized a rule to implement the 2022 law, and the rule made background checks for online sales more common. It affected an estimated 23,000 firearm dealers, and is expected to impact tens of thousands of gun sales a year, Reuters reported.

Several Republican-led states challenged the rule in federal court. In June, a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule from being enforced in Texas, Louisiana, Utah and Mississippi until the ongoing lawsuit is resolved.  

In many states, people who are not regularly engaged in the firearm sales business can make private sales without a background check, and the sales can be initiated online.  

In a separate rule, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also attempted to tighten online background check rules for "ghost guns," which are assembled from kits into a functioning and untraceable gun. That rule, which would treat ghost guns the same as traditional firearms, is paused and awaiting a Supreme Court ruling. 

Although these rules aimed to make online gun sales stricter and increase background checks for those sales, they did not ban them outright. We rate this Promise Broken.

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden said he would "enact legislation to prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts."

He hasn't fulfilled all of this promise, but he's made some steps in that direction.

No legislation to ban the online sale of firearms and ammunition has advanced in Congress, but another bill — the Bipartisan Background Checks Act — passed the House in March 2021. It was approved largely on partisan lines, with 291 Democrats and eight Republicans supporting it.

The bill includes a provision that requires a background check for people who want to buy guns online. This provision falls short of the ban Biden promised, but it would tighten the regulation of online sales.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has promised a vote on the measure in his chamber, but based on past votes on measures to tighten gun regulation, it faces almost impossible odds. (We separately rated a promise related to this bill Stalled.)

Another effort being pursued by the Biden administration has better odds.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has proposed a new rule for "ghost guns," which are kits sold online or by mail that can be used to make functioning guns. The proposed rule would make the purchase of those kits subject to background checks and other regulations.

The ATF rule could be finalized as soon as early 2022, and as an executive branch action, it could be accomplished without any role by Congress. However, it could be subject to legal challenge.

Neither the legislation nor the rule change would fully ban online sales of firearms, and neither has been enacted yet. But the ATF's proposed rule, which the administration could enact on its own, would tighten regulations on one type of online firearm sale. So we rate this promise In the Works.