Here’s the sober reality whether we like it or not:
Pro–Second Amendment advocates may not want to hear this, but no Attorney General even a friendly one is going to simply stop defending federal gun laws or dismantle them from within. That’s not how the system is built.
If those laws are going to change, it will happen the hard way through the courts or through legislation not because the Department of Justice decides to walk away from its duty.
With Pam Bondi’s time as Attorney General coming to an end, I have received some criticism for seeing her tenure as generally very positive for the Second Amendment. In fact, I have said that by overseeing the creation of the Second Amendment Section of the Civil Rights Division and actively filing lawsuits to defeat things like “assault weapon” laws and lengthy carry permit wait times, she has overseen the most pro-Second Amendment Department of Justice since Reconstruction. Bondi’s DOJ is also likely the reason the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the Wolford case despite its preliminary injunction posture, and her Department is also now implementing what will be the largest rights restoration process for the Second Amendment in U.S. history.
By objective measures of actions taken, Bondi’s DOJ has been the most favorable to the Second Amendment in the modern era. Perhaps you can complain that the bar is too low because prior administrations were always too hostile to the Second Amendment, and Bondi’s DOJ merely did the bare minimum. Fair enough. But that does not change that no prior administration has done even that much.
None of this is to say I agree with every position that the DOJ has taken since President Trump’s return to office. I work for the Second Amendment Foundation after all, and we have many active cases ongoing against the federal government. We think the NFA’s registration scheme is unconstitutional, and have multiple cases concerning that issue alone. The DOJ has also frustratingly sought to narrow relief in some of our cases, like attempting to limit court injunctions to only those SAF members who had become members by the time the lawsuit in question was first filed.
By Kostas Moros
