New Act Exempts Less-Lethal Police Devices from Federal Gun Laws, Sets 500 FPS Speed Limit

The “Law-Enforcement Innovate to De-Escalate Act of 2025” is short, but it makes a significant change to how certain law enforcement tools are regulated. Essentially, this bill carves out a special exemption for specific types of “less-than-lethal projectile devices” so they aren’t treated like firearms under the federal gun laws found in Title 18 of the U.S. Code.

The Fine Print on the Fast Lane

This isn’t a blanket pass for every non-lethal weapon out there. The bill is highly specific about what qualifies for this regulatory bypass (Sec. 2). To earn the exemption, a device must meet three key technical requirements. First, it cannot be designed or easily modified to shoot standard handgun, rifle, or shotgun ammunition. Second, its projectile speed is capped: it cannot fire anything faster than 500 feet per second (fps). For context, a standard 9mm bullet travels at about 1,200 fps, so this is a significant speed difference. Third, it can’t use certain common magazine designs—specifically, no magazines that load through the pistol grip, nor those associated with semi-automatic firearms.

The Safety Catch: “Probably Won’t Cause Serious Injury”

Beyond the technical specs, the bill introduces a critical, yet subjective, requirement: the device must be designed so that its use “probably won’t cause death or serious injury” (Sec. 2). This is where things get interesting. While the 500 fps limit is a clear number, the word “probably” is not. This means that even if a manufacturer meets the speed and magazine requirements, the device still has to pass a subjective safety standard. For regular folks, this is the provision to watch, as it dictates the actual impact level of the equipment that could be used in public interactions. If this definition is interpreted too loosely, devices with a higher risk profile might bypass regulations intended to ensure public safety.

The Real-World Impact on Innovation and Regulation

For manufacturers and law enforcement agencies, this bill is designed to reduce the regulatory friction associated with developing and deploying new de-escalation tools. If a device meets these new criteria, it avoids the heavier regulatory burden of federal firearm laws. This is a clear win for innovation in the de-escalation space. However, it also shifts the burden of classification.

If a company is unsure if their new device qualifies, they can ask the Attorney General for an official ruling. The AG then has 90 days to test the device and issue a classification (Sec. 2). This creates a formal, 90-day waiting period that could either streamline the process or, if the AG’s office is slow or inconsistent, create a bottleneck. For the public, this means the AG’s office holds significant power in determining which less-than-lethal technologies are allowed to bypass standard federal oversight. It’s a classic trade-off: faster innovation versus established regulatory checks.