Highlights:
- Private gun sales are legal in Alabama.
- There are no waiting periods for gun sales in Alabama.
- The minimum age for gun buyers in Alabama is 18, with limited exceptions.
- Unlicensed gun sellers don’t need to run background checks on buyers in Alabama.
- Alabamians can sell guns to Cash for Arms if they prefer hassle-free and high-profit sales.
Step 1: Understand Alabama’s Gun Sale Laws
You do not need a federal license to sell guns in Alabama
People who sell guns here without a federal license are called private gun sellers.
You need a federal license if you want to make gun trading a business in Alabama
This is for people buying/selling guns in bulk and often. The ATF no longer considers those private sellers and requires them to become FFLs (Federal Firearms Licensees).
Private gun sellers don’t require buyer background checks in Alabama
The state law doesn’t require it. Meanwhile, federal law only requires it for FFLs.
There’s no waiting period for gun sales in Alabama
Gun transfers from private gun sellers can be done in a day.
Alabama doesn’t have bulk gun purchase limits
This means gun sellers can sell multiple guns to the same person per purchase. If you're looking to sell or liquidate a large amount of guns in Alabama, contact us for a specialized offer!
You do not need to register guns to sell them in Alabama
That state doesn’t have a gun registry either.
There are no record-keeping requirements for private gun sales in Alabama
This means private sellers don’t even need to (but can) make bills of sale.
Step 2: Learn Who Your Legal Buyers Are
Private gun sellers in Alabama can sell to FFLs or to individuals.
FFLs can be businesses like Cash for Arms or local gun stores. They can even be pawn shops, as Type 02 FFLs allow pawnbrokers to trade guns.
The main benefit of selling to them is that you know the ATF vetted them for their licenses. In other words, you can trust that it’s perfectly legal to sell your gun to them.
When selling to individuals, however, you have to do your own due diligence. It’s illegal for some people to possess guns in Alabama, so you can’t sell to them. Here they are:
- Convicts of crimes or attempted crimes that are violent or count as violent offenses
- Convicts of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence
- Those currently under indictment for a felony crime
- Convicts of felony crimes
- Those subject to valid protection orders for domestic abuse
- Those subject to certain restraining court orders
- Those with dishonorable discharges from the Armed Forces
- Former US citizens who renounced their citizenship
- Illegal users/addicts to controlled substances
- The habitually drugged or intoxicated
- Those of unsound mind
- Fugitives from justice
- Illegal aliens
- Minors (those under 18), with exceptions like National Guard/Armed Forces members acting in the line of duty
Step 3: Do Market Value Research
Next, you need to learn how much your gun is worth right now. Two easy ways to do it don’t even require you to leave your home as you can do them online:
- Seek similar guns that have sold on GunBroker. Find several listings if you can and get the average or range for their prices.
- Let us appraise it. You can do that through our website and we’ll appraise it for free.
You should know there are a lot of things that affect your gun’s value, like these:
- Make and model
- Condition
- Accessories
- Customization
- Market trends
When doing research, try to account for as many of these as possible. For example, if you try to find its value yourself by finding prices in past gun sales, you should:
- Find sold guns with makes and models like yours.
- Find sold guns whose conditions are very similar to yours.
Or, if you try to find its value by having us appraise it online, you should:
- Be as precise in its description as possible, leaving out no detail.
- Send us the clearest possible images of it to ensure we can really assess its condition.
Step 4: Sell Your Gun to Your Preferred Buyer
Once you have a sense of how much you should get for your gun, it’s time for the sale! We’ve listed the steps to follow when selling to different gun buyers in Alabama.
Option 1: Sell It to Cash for Arms
Pros:
- Often the best market prices
- Different choices for payment methods
- Streamlined sale process
- Shipping and sale fees covered by buyer
- Security of selling to an FFL
Cons:
- Potential delay for payment if shipping is slow
How to do it:
- Submit details of the gun to us through our website. If you asked us to appraise your gun for free, you’ve already gone through this step!
- Wait for approximately an hour for us to send an offer.
- Check out the offer and let us know if you like it.
- Use the prepaid shipping labels we give you to ship the gun to us.
- Get paid within 24 hours of us getting our hands on the firearm.
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Option 2: Find a Local Gun Store
Pros:
- In-person sales
- Payment then and there
- Gun shop atmosphere (you can browse other guns while there!)
- Security of selling to an FFL
Cons:
- Low offers that often start at just half your gun’s market value
- Occasional high-pressure tactics in negotiation
- High-effort if you want to find multiple offers
How to do it:
- Call the gun stores in your vicinity to offer your gun to them.
- Make a list of the gun stores that say they’re interested in buying the gun.
- Unload and clean your gun, then put it in a safe container to bring to the stores on your list.
- Let the stores appraise your gun and jot down their offers for it.
- Once you’ve visited all stores, go back to the one with the best offer.
- If you’re confident in your haggling skills, try negotiating to bring the price up. Otherwise, sell the gun to them for their current offer.
Option 3: Sell to a Pawn Shop
Pros:
- In-person sales
- Payment then and there
- Option to pawn instead of sell
- Security of selling to an FFL
Cons:
- Often has the lowest offers of all serious buyers
- Occasional high-pressure tactics in negotiation
- High-effort if you want to find multiple offers
How to do it:
- (Follow the same steps we provided for gun stores, but look for pawn shops.)
Option 3: Find a Local
Pros:
- In-person sales
- Ability to set sales terms yourself
- Could potentially get higher prices than a local gun store
Cons:
- Can take a lot of time and work
- Oftentimes you don’t sell the gun immediately
- Requires you to advertise your gun first
- May entail the risk of meeting strangers
- Makes you legally liable if you sell to someone you know is on the prohibited persons list
How to do it:
- Advertise your gun where Alabama gun buyers are likely to see it. Here are some of our recommendations:
- Local shooting ranges and clubs - A lot of local ranges have physical posting boards where you can put up flyers for your gun. Ask first, of course!
- Alabama Gun Forum - A great online forum for finding gun owners in the state. It has a classifieds section where you can post listings.
- Gulf Coast Gun Forum - Another online community where you can find Alabama gun owners. Use the dedicated buy-and-sell section but be sure you say in your listing that you want Alabama buyers.
- AR15.com - Another place for talking about firearms online. Hop on over to the Alabama section and join the trading!
- Wait for offers to come in from your gun ad or listing.
- Screen your buyers to make sure they’re both local and not on the prohibited persons list we gave you earlier.
- Choose the legal buyer with the best offer and clearest interest (no tire-kickers!).
- Decide on the terms of the sale with your chosen buyer.
- Meet your buyer at a public place so you can do the transfer. Here are our recommendations. Be sure you let staff at these places know that you’re doing a gun transfer ahead of time:
- Police stations
- Gun shops
- Shooting ranges
- Public areas with surveillance
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Conclusion
That concludes our guide to how to sell guns in Alabama. With this, your sale should be pretty easy to manage.
Of course, if you want as smooth an experience as possible, you should think about selling to Cash for Arms. We’re famous for easy gun sales – just ask any of the around-400 Alabama sellers we’ve already worked with.
Basically, we take nearly all the work out of sellers’ hands while still giving them great profits! Contact us or call 904-977-5477 to find out more!