On February 7 President Donald Trump (R) signed an executive action titled “Protecting Second Amendment Rights.”
The action’s stated purpose is elegantly simple:
The Second Amendment is an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty. It has preserved the right of the American people to protect ourselves, our families, and our freedoms since the founding of our great Nation. Because it is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed.
From this declarative statement about the nature of our Second Amendment-protected freedom, this executive action orders that within 30 days Attorney General Pam Bondi must “examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens, and present a proposed plan of action to the President, through the Domestic Policy Advisor, to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.”
The attorney general is instructed to also review all executive actions from the former President Joe Biden (D).
The attorney general also must review all rules developed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) during the last administration. She must also look into and report on any agency “plans, orders, and actions regarding the so-called ‘enhanced regulatory enforcement policy’ pertaining to firearms and/or Federal firearms licensees.” And she must report on all “related documents issued by the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi must next review the positions taken by the DOJ in “any and all ongoing and potential litigation that affects or could affect the ability of Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” as well as the ATF’s “classifications of firearms and ammunition” and the “processing of applications to make, manufacture, transfer, or export firearms.”
After 30 days, when this report is finished, this action states that on “submission of the proposed plan of action … the Attorney General shall work with the Domestic Policy Advisor to finalize the plan of action and establish a process for implementation.”
President Trump, with this directive, is moving fast to find and root out any remaining anti-Second Amendment rules, actions and legal positions still in place that were created by the Biden administration.
