The National Association for Gun Rights is calling on President Donald Trump to fire Attorney General Pam Bondi, declaring her a "failure" when it comes to supporting the Second Amendment.
The National Association for Gun Rights is officially calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be FIRED.
— National Association for Gun Rights (@NatlGunRights) October 10, 2025
Those are not words we take lightly - but Pam Bondi has given us no choice.
While we all had major concerns with the nomination of Pam Bondi as AG, we hoped for the best… pic.twitter.com/gmB1aSL6Iz
In a thread on X, NAGR says the last straw was "when she convinced a federal judge to demand the member lists of TWO national Second Amendment advocacy organizations."
That’s right - Pam Bondi’s DOJ successfully scored a court order for two gun groups to HAND OVER THEIR MEMBERS’ PRIVATE INFORMATION to the federal government; in all likelihood names, addresses, contact info - everything.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet J. Dhillon, who heads the DOJ Civil Rights Division and has been instrumental in suing the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department over concealed carry delays and arguing against state-level bans on so-called assault weapons by supporting plaintiffs challenging Illinois' and New Jersey's gun ban laws, responded to NAGR with a thread of her own.
Here’s what actually happened: After the 5th Circuit held that the federal ban on FFL handgun sales to those under 21 violated the #2A, the AG declined to further appeal that ruling. The remaining issue was the scope of the injunction. After a hard-fought win for the President on…
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) October 11, 2025
Here’s what actually happened: After the 5th Circuit held that the federal ban on FFL handgun sales to those under 21 violated the #2A, the AG declined to further appeal that ruling. The remaining issue was the scope of the injunction. After a hard-fought win for the President on nationwide injunctions in Trump v. CASA, DOJ obviously could not agree to a nationwide injunction in any other case—or any injunction that would effectively serve as a CASA workaround.
So, in the 5th Circuit case, DOJ agreed to an injunction throughout the 5th Circuit, as well as an injunction for any known members of the plaintiff organizations located anywhere else in the country. In response, the court ordered something DOJ did not ask for—it ordered the plaintiffs to submit members lists. On Friday, DOJ and the plaintiffs submitted a joint filing asking the court to correct that misstep. This is just one example of what we do every day at DOJ: we do everything we can to protect civil rights—including the long-neglected right to keep and bear arms—while more broadly advancing the President’s agenda and the rule of law.
I understand Dhillon's point about the DOJ needing to be consistent in its approach to national injunctions, but it still puts the DOJ in the position of essentially arguing that a law it's declining to defend (at least in the Fifth Circuit) should continue to be enforced against the vast majority of people within the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction.
Dhillon is also correct in pointing out that the DOJ did not demand the plaintiffs, including the Firearms Policy Coalition, and Louisiana Shooting Association, turn over a list of all of their members to the federal government. Instead, the agency proposed that the injunctive relief be applied to:
individuals who(i) were members of Plaintiffs Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., Second Amendment Foundation, or Louisiana Shooting Association at the time this action was filed on November 6, 2020, and (ii) have been identified and verified by respective Plaintiff organizations during the course of this litigation.
As we discussed with FPC's Brandon Combs on Bearing Arms' Cam & Co last week, the DOJ's original terms would mean that only those FPC, SAF, and LSA members who were 13-to-16-years-old at the time the lawsuit was filed would be eligible for relief (along with the named plaintiffs), not any 18-to-20-year-olds who have joined one or more of these organizations more recently. But those members (not every member) would still have to be "identified and verified" by the organizations in order to be protected by the injunction.
Again, this may be consistent with the DOJ's position in other lawsuits involving organizations, but it undeniably negatively impacts the 2A rights of young adults who would like to be able to legally purchase a handgun at retail.
In the joint filing on Friday, the DOJ and 2A groups asked the judge to modify the terms of his injunction by replacing “shall provide” with “may provide.”
The Court’s Judgment compels Plaintiffs to disclose their membership as of November 6, 2020, to the Government by October 28, 2025. The Government, as a general policy, does not compel disclosure of the identity of members of private organizations, and the Government did not seek to do so here. Plaintiffs assert that the Judgment’s order compelling them to disclose their membership violates the First Amendment and would subject them to irreparable harm.
The plaintiffs, however, "do not concede that altering the Judgment in this way would make its scope appropriate, and Plaintiffs retain their right to challenge all aspects of the Judgment on appeal," so they're still going to argue for a much broader judgment than what was handed down by the district court judge.
Dhillon also took issue with NAGR's assertion that Bondi is advocating for lifetime gun bans for non-violent felons, arguing that's "not a fair characterization of the DOJ position. The assistant AG says the Justice Department has "enerally defended 18 U.S.C. 922(g) while also simultaneously establishing a rights-restoration process for nonviolent felons."
So, a more accurate description of the DOJ's position is that non-violent felons should be banned from owning firearms, but should have the opportunity to apply to have their rights restored at some point in the future, subject to approval by the Attorney General. That is different than simply supporting a lifetime ban on guns for non-violent felons, but it's also at odds with the position taken by Second Amendment groups and some federal courts, which say at least some of the prohibited persons statutes that fall under 18 U.S.C. 922(g) are too broad to pass muster under the Second Amendment.
Dhillon outlined some of the work the Civil Rights Division and DOJ more broadly is doing, including asking SCOTUS to take the Wolford v. Lopez case dealing with Hawaii's "vampire rule" for concealed carry licensees, and added "the Attorney General’s Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force has settled, declined to appeal, or changed positions in appropriate cases from the Biden Administration to better protect law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights. The Department has recognized, for example, that suppressors are within the scope of the Second Amendment…"
That is true, though it was originally the DOJ's contention that suppressors were not protected by the Second Amendment; a position it took as recently as March of this year. And even when DOJ reversed course in May, it still argued that the taxation and registration requirements for suppressors under the National Firearms Act were consistent with the Second Amendment, declaring those requirements "a modest burden on a firearm accessory that is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition because suppressors are specially adaptable to criminal misuse."
Dhillon concluded her thread by stating:
I am a gun owner and a long-time advocate for Second Amendment Rights. I have fought in private practice for the broadest possible scope of federal and state gun rights. And I am VERY proud of the work this @TheJusticeDept and especially my boss @AGPamBondi have put in towards securing these fundamental rights. No one has fought harder for them or has a better track record. She has been relentless and so supportive of all my efforts in the #2A space. I firmly reject these fake news criticisms of our 2A efforts and urge people to look at the record and recognize that it isn’t going to get better than having this AG, working with this White House, to continue to defend and expand these fundamental civil rights, including the right to self-defense and more under the #2A.The critics of this administration want nothing more than to see this type of infighting. Reject it and rally behind our strong, principled AG as she continues to do a stellar job on gun rights issues.
Under Pam Bondi, the DOJ has taken historic steps to support the right to keep and bear arms. But that doesn't mean that Second Amendment organizations can't also find fault with some of the positions the DOJ has taken in some 2A-related cases. And it's undeniably true that the position the administration has taken regarding the scope of national injunctions and organization standing could have a detrimental impact on 2A litigation going forward, even if gun rights groups aren't the intended target of the administration's position.
As the Firearms Policy Coalition has argued, the Trump administration's current position, as articulated by the DOJ, seems to be that state-level gun controls are bad, and federal gun control laws are good... or at least don't violate our right to keep and bear arms. That is far better than what we've seen from the DOJ in previous administrations, but it still leaves room for improvement. And who knows, maybe we'll soon see the DOJ actually argue in favor of repealing a federal gun law. It declined to defend the federal ban on sales of handguns to adults younger than 21 in Reese v. ATF after the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but that's not the only case dealing with the issue.
The DOJ's reply brief in two other cases dealing with bans on retail sales of handguns to under-21s is due to the Supreme Court one week from today, and the administration has the opportunity to unequivocally declare the statute is indefensible on Second Amendment grounds. I'm hoping that's the position the DOJ will take, and if it instead decides to defend the statute Bondi should expect another round of criticism from organizations defending the people's right to keep, bear, and buy arms.
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