The Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi has been surprisingly strong on Second Amendment issues, especially considering so many of us had concerns about Bondi. How much of that is a matter of simply doing what President Donald Trump asked versus her own initiative remains to be seen, but it hasn't sucked.
That doesn't mean it's been great. There have been issues that need to be resolved, and we've talked about those.
However, the Firearms Policy Coalition has even bigger concerns based on the way the DOJ responded to their lawsuit challenging the interstate handgun ban.
At issue in the case is whether the ban meets the Supreme Court precedent that requires the government to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the text and historical understanding of the Second Amendment. According to the plaintiffs, that’s not true with this law.
According to the FPC, the DOJ, apparently seeing a bad ending in the case, is seeking to limit the damage as it continues to fight for the ban. The recent DOJ brief argued that if FPC is successful in striking down the law, the court should enter an extremely narrow injunction that would leave the unconstitutional law in place for everyone except two individuals and one Texas firearms retailer. That would allow the government to continue enforcing the ban against millions of peaceable Americans.
“If the Court grants an injunction, that injunction should extend no further than to bar enforcement of any laws the Court deems unconstitutional against the named plaintiffs specifically identified in the complaint,” the DOJ argues in its brief. “Because the [FPC] has not identified any of its members other than the named plaintiffs, the government would have no way to know whom an injunction restricting enforcement of the challenged laws covers.”
FPC President Brandon Combs said the Trump DOJ’s scheme would gut nearly every lawsuit against the federal government unless and until the Supreme Court steps in.
Uh...yeah, it would.
Normally, when an organization files a lawsuit and an injunction is issued that only affects members of the group, it covers all members or, at a minimum, people who were members when the injunction was issued.
What the DOJ is arguing is that there shouldn't be an injunction because they can't specifically identify individuals who will be able to do what they want on this matter, which has never been the standard before, so far as I'm aware.
It would basically mean there's no relief on anything until the Supreme Court issues a ruling.
To call this troubling is really pretty mild, and we have a right to demand better from the Trump administration on this. I get that Bondi didn't have the strongest Second Amendment credentials when she took office, but she's apparently been trying to rectify that. This ain't it, though. You can't establish a Second Amendment task force, then try to argue that challenges to gun laws don't warrant injunctions without a tiny handful of people being specified for it to apply to.
If a right is being trampled, it's being trampled on for everyone, not just the few who are being represented.
Clearly, the DOJ needs to do better.
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