I've said that the Trump administration is the most pro-gun administration in history, and I stand by that. The problem is that the bar is pretty low, so it didn't take much to achieve that title.
But is the administration filled with staunch supporters of the Second Amendment, or are we still going to flounder?
It's a question we need to understand, because while last week was freaking amazing for us, and we've gotten a lot of good stuff at the start of the president's second term, what we should expect going forward matters.
There's no doubt that he was the better alternative. Had Kamala Harris won, the ATF would have continued the disastrous policies of the Biden administration and either kept Deitelbach as ATF director or selected someone worse.
But is he a true "ride or die" for gun owners? Reason's Jacob Sullum tends to think similarly to me, in that he's not.
After the Supreme Court clarified the constitutional test for gun control laws in 2022, many longstanding restrictions on the right to arms looked newly vulnerable. Second Amendment groups jumped at the opportunity, filing one lawsuit after another in cases that frequently pitted them against the Biden administration.
Those groups now have a powerful ally in the Trump administration, which has filed several lawsuits aimed at vindicating Americans' gun rights, including two filed last week in Colorado. But even as the Justice Department advertises its commitment to defending the Second Amendment, its position in other gun cases belies that stance.
The Colorado lawsuits involve the state's 15-round magazine limit and Denver's "assault weapon" ban. Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, argues that both laws are unconstitutional for the same reason: They ban arms "in common use" for "lawful purposes," which the Supreme Court has said are covered by the Second Amendment, and there is no "historical tradition" that would justify such a policy, as required by the test that the Court prescribed in 2022.
Last December, Dhillon deployed the same argument against the District of Columbia's "assault weapon" ban in another lawsuit filed by the Civil Rights Division's newly established Second Amendment Section. Although federal appeals courts so far have not been receptive to such challenges, at least four Supreme Court justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch—seem inclined to agree with Dhillon.
...The Justice Department nevertheless maintains that the Second Amendment does not apply to broad categories of Americans who are barred from owning firearms based on criteria that have little or nothing to do with public safety. The Trump administration has defended the Gun Control Act's ban on firearm possession by "unlawful" drug users, which is at the center of a case that the Supreme Court will soon decide, and that law's disarmament of people with nonviolent felony records, which has generated many petitions that the justices so far have declined to accept.
Both of those controversies pit the Trump administration against the National Rifle Association and other leading gun rights groups. It is not hard to see why, since neither policy is supported by the sort of "historical tradition" that the Supreme Court has said is required to justify gun regulations.
The Justice Department insists that "the Second Amendment is not a second-class right." Yet it argues that cannabis consumers and people convicted of nonviolent felonies are, in effect, second-class citizens.
Bingo.
I understand that some people argue that yes, the Trump administration is defending some of these measures, but not because they buy into the argument. It's their duty, you see, to defend these measures, so they're only half-heartedly doing so.
However, I have yet to see anything in the Constitution or any law that actually mandates the DOJ to defend federal law if they believe the law in question is unconstitutional. In other words, if they're defending these laws, it's because they want to on some level.
Understand that Harmeet Dhillon is "ride or die" on the Second Amendment from literally everything I've seen. The gun laws that are being defended are happening outside of her office. The Civil Rights Division is going after gun control laws at the state and local level with a vengeance, and the fact that she's learning to shoot and exercise her own Second Amendment rights is a positive sign.
But the rest of the DOJ is more of a question mark.
Are we better off than we were before? Undoubtedly. I don't think anyone can look at what's transpired since January 20, 2025, and think otherwise, at least at the federal level. We're winning in ways we never have before, and I'm grateful for each win as it is.
That doesn't mean I don't have a right to get a little greedy when it comes to our right to keep and bear arms. I want all my gun rights back. Yes, even the ones that don't technically apply to me right here and now because I'm not a non-violent felon or cannabis user. I want all of them back in case literally anything in my life changes, but also because my rights are not protected unless everyone else's rights are protected.
I don't have to approve of them to want their rights respected by our government. I have to demand they be respected because, if I don't, there's no reason for anyone to stand by me when mine are on the chopping block for some reason.
Unfortunately, the DOJ--which serves at the pleasure of President Trump--doesn't see it that way, and that makes him a fickle ally at best. Better than the option, but still not ideal.
