"Gun Owners for Trump" Should be More Than Campaign Window Dressing
A Realistic Checklist for the New Administration
Donald Trump was sworn in for the second time as president on January 20. With his victory comes new hope for gun owners, relieved that four years of unrelenting attacks by the Joe Biden administration will be coming to an end and that there will be no Kamala Harris administration with Supreme and inferior court appointment powers.
With new hopes comes no shortage of expectations for what a Trump administration can and should do for us. After all, he campaigned with bold promises, including, “My administration will protect the right of self-defense wherever it is under siege.” He would not have gotten elected without gun owner support based on those promises. It’s fair to say he owes us.
Missteps Or …?
We’d heard such seductive assurances about “our beautiful Second Amendment” before and felt justifiably angered, disillusioned, and betrayed during the first Trump administration when he banned bump stocks, endorsed Red Flag assaults on due process (“Take the guns first, go through due process second.”), considered raising the minimum age to buy firearms to 21, and thanked then-Florida Governor Rick Scott for signing post-Parkland infringements into law.
But what other option did gun owners have? Trump stepped up his pro-gun rhetoric and pledges on the campaign trail, telling us what we wanted to hear.
With Harris as the alternative, the only real political choice was clear. And now comes the great task of keeping a strongly willful man known to make up his mind based on what he thinks and wander off track at will.
In recognizing this, we need to keep our expectations realistic.
Realistic Expectations
The Constitution established checks and balances via three separate branches of government, and the executive is not delegated authority to impose its will on the other two. While some may wish that President Trump could, in our case, that kind of power, once established, is not something gun owners would want to see in the hands of a Democrat violence monopolist.
So, Trump won’t be able to wave a magic wand and “give” us concealed carry reciprocity or suppressor deregulation/hearing protection paybacks. Don’t look for the Hughes Amendment banning post-1986 machine guns to disappear or the Holy Grail of scuttling the National Firearms Act and all the infringements that followed to happen. He can’t unilaterally shut down ATF, and doing so wouldn’t eliminate its functions, which would just transfer to the FBI anyway.
The president can veto any bad bills that make it to his desk if the Republican Congress fails at its job, and with “Vichycons” exemplified by Pennsylvania’s Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (endorsed by Giffords) or Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins running interference for the gun-grabbers, we can’t count on a Congressional majority to pass the good ones.
One thing Trump can do immediately is get rid of George H.W. Bush’s import ban on 43 types of semiautos deemed not compliant with the 1968 Gun Control Act’s “sporting use” requirement. He could order ATF to declare them as such, just like such guns manufactured domestically are classified.
Government Support?
Most of all, he can make wise appointments, especially with judges.
Whomever he selects to head ATF needs to focus on dangerous criminals and stop with all the “rules” (although performing many of those crimefighting functions still runs afoul of delegated Constitutional authority for a federal government intended by the Framers to confine itself to piracy, counterfeiting, and treason). It’s a no-win assignment until the laws are changed, so the best we can hope for is ATF doing minimal damage and knocking off its mania for redefining parts as firearms, inciting the media mob to spook the herd on “ghost guns,” harassing FFLs for paperwork glitches and persecuting gun owners.
Matt Gaetz, with his correct understanding of the Second Amendment, was a good choice for Attorney General, but it was not to be. Trump’s Attorney General pick, former Florida AG Pam Bondi, is damaged goods as far as many gun owners are concerned, having fought for age restrictions on gun purchases, red flag prior restraints, bump stock bans, open carry prohibitions, and more. As Trump’s AG, she needs to back off pushing restrictions like she did in Florida and start proactively defending the Second Amendment against state infringements like DOJ does in “civil rights” cases. Currently, that’s all left up to gun rights groups scraping up donations from members so they can challenge government entities with virtually unlimited legal war chests. A DOJ ally would be a game-changer.
He should eliminate Biden’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention and replace it with an Office for Second Amendment Protection, chaired by Vice President JD Vance and populated with prominent “Gun Owners for Trump” influencers introduced in his campaign, who would serve as informed advisors on gun issues reaching his desk. They could report their efforts and progress to us “ordinary” gun owners who could also provide feedback to help shape agenda priorities, including ATF oversight, bill analyses, and legal strategies. We could have a conduit to share our hopes, concerns, and objections with an approachable council of “gun rights leaders” whose ears we have and who have the president’s ear.
With the election of Donald Trump, gun owners dodged a bullet. Now, we need to guide his aim toward the right targets and hope no new catastrophe coupled with a kneejerk reaction makes us victims of “friendly fire.” Such an office would be an invaluable safeguard.
