26 U.S.C. § 5848
Section 5848 · Restrictive use of information
This is § 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 84 court decisions — leading case United States v. Harflinger (1970)
Most recently applied in 148 Cal. App. 4th 374 - People v. Sun (March 2007)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
No information or evidence obtained from an application, registration, or records required to be submitted or retained by a natural person in order to comply with any provision of this chapter or regulations issued thereunder, shall, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, be used, directly or indirectly, as evidence against that person in a criminal proceeding with respect to a violation of law occurring prior to or concurrently with the filing of the application or registration, or the compiling of the records containing the information or evidence.
Subsection (a) of this section shall not preclude the use of any such information or evidence in a prosecution or other action under any applicable provision of law with respect to the furnishing of false information.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Prior Provisions
A prior section 5848, act Aug. 16, 1954, ch. 736, 68A Stat. 727, as amended by acts Sept. 2, 1958, Pub. L. 85–859, title II, §203(f), 72 Stat. 1427; June 1, 1960, Pub. L. 86–478, §3, 74 Stat. 149, related to definition of a firearm, machine gun, rifle, shotgun, other weapon, importer, manufacturer, dealer, interstate commerce, transfer and person, prior to the general revision of this chapter by Pub. L. 90–618.