The Trump administration has had some rocky moments with Second Amendment conservatives. Particularly during the the response to "Operation Metro Surge" in Minneapolis last winter, former DHS secretary Kristi Noem notched a couple of unforced errors that've had some among libertarians and the "horseshoe right" chanting that Trump had turned the GOP into an "anti-gun party" (which might be a reasonable belief if you leave out the fact that no Republican legislature has passed, nor has any Republican governor not facing a veto-proof Democrat majority signed, any significant anti-gun legislation in decades).
But hopefully, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will set the record very straight:
In a wide-ranging conversation with nationally-syndicated talk radio host, Tom Gresham, Blanche touched on upcoming regulatory changes, a reshaping of ATF enforcement priorities, active Supreme Court litigation, and a deliberate strategy to embed Second Amendment protections so deeply into federal regulatory infrastructure that future administrations would struggle to reverse them.
Blanche discussed the highlights of the proposed changes in federal gun policy, which include:
- A big overhaul of federal firearms regulations
- Building a regulatory framework that can't be overturned with a stroke of an auto-pen by an anti-gun administration
- Changing the culture of federal gun law enforcement
- Helping the good guys fight the battle all the way to the Supreme Court.
Let's take a look at each of these points.
Out With The Old, In With The New: Gun dealers and Federal Firearm License (FFL) holders in particular should benefit from bringing the Feds' regulatory posture into the 21st century:
The one example [Blanche] offered — eliminating in-person signature requirements for certain firearms transactions and allowing electronic processes similar to tax filing — hints at a broader effort to modernize and liberalize the transactional framework governing gun sales. But Blanche made clear there’s more to come, deliberately holding back details for maximum impact upon release.
The gun industry, particularly Federal Firearms Licensees, is preparing for meaningful relief from regulatory burdens that have constrained their operations. Simultaneously, gun control advocacy groups and Democrat state attorneys general are expected to file legal challenges almost immediately upon publication of the new rules.
Which sounds well and good, but what happens when the gun grab groups funded by all that Michael Bloomberg money start filing lawsuits?
Rules Is Rules Is Rules: The Administration is also working on building up is capacity to fight the legal battles that are sure to follow, down to hiring one of the precious few Second Amendment proponents in the nation's legal academy to serve at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' chief counsel:
Robert Leider is an Assistant Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. His scholarly interests are in criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law, especially concerning questions about the use of force and the rule of law. He has written on the law of self-defense, the constitutional allocation of military power, and gun control. Among other places, he has published in the Florida Law Review (forthcoming), the Indiana Law Journal, and the Wall Street Journal.
Changing Times at the ATF: Along with that, expect major changes at the ATF, the nation's primary gun law enforcer:
Rather than directing civil inspectors to scrutinize licensed dealers over administrative compliance, Blanche said the agency should be "hiring special agents to go arrest robbers."
This is a philosophical reorientation, not just a policy tweak. It reflects a view — long held by the firearm industry and Second Amendment advocates — that federal firearms enforcement has been weaponized against lawful gun owners and dealers while failing to address violent crime committed with illegally obtained weapons.
That change alone will not just be a complete shift in emphasis, but will instantly invalidate a generation of gun activists' black humor about the ATF's warped priorities.
On The Right Team: the focus on protecting gun rights, according to Blanche, is moving to the front of the list of priorities:
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dillon’s role is particularly notable. As head of the DOJ’s civil rights division, she has reoriented a division that largely ignored the Second Amendment. Her use of that platform to file pro-Second Amendment lawsuits represents a significant and novel use of the civil rights infrastructure of the federal government.:
It'll take some time and will to push through - and it'll take gun owners actually going to the polls and voting Second Amendment to finish the job - but it's some news I don't know I'd ever expected to hear.
