Part 478 is the regulation that runs your license. It exists to carry out Title I of the Gun Control Act of 1968, codified at 18 U.S.C. Chapter 44, and it covers commerce in firearms and ammunition — the buying, selling, shipping, and licensing activity that moves guns and ammunition across state lines or into the country from abroad. If you are reading this book because you hold, or want to hold, a dealer’s, manufacturer’s, or importer’s license, Part 478 is the rulebook you live under.

The part is broad by design, and § 478.1 sets out eight areas it covers: interstate and foreign commerce in firearms and ammunition; the licensing of manufacturers, importers, collectors, and dealers; how licensees must conduct their business; importation itself; the records and reports a licensee must keep; relief from disabilities; certain exempt commerce; and restrictions on armor piercing ammunition. Every later chapter in this book — licensing, recordkeeping, transfers, inspections — traces back to one of those eight.

Part 478 is not the whole of federal firearms regulation, though. A companion regulation, Part 479, governs the National Firearms Act side of the business: machine guns, destructive devices, and certain other firearms subject to registration under the National Firearms Act. Part 479 itself points back to Part 478 for the commerce rules that apply to those same items — so an FFL dealing in an NFA-regulated firearm is working under both parts at once, not choosing between them.