Analysis: Where Is the DOJ’s Second Amendment Report? [Member Exclusive]

On February seventh, President Donald Trump gave Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi 30 days to finalize and submit a coverage plan of motion for enacting pro-gun reforms. Practically two months later, the Trump Administration hasn’t launched any plan.

“Inside 30 days of the date of this order, the Lawyer Basic shall look at all orders, laws, steering, plans, worldwide agreements, and different actions of govt departments and companies (companies) to evaluate any ongoing infringements of the Second Modification rights of our residents, and current a proposed plan of motion to the President, by way of the Home Coverage Advisor, to guard the Second Modification rights of all People,” the order said.

The 30-day due date for that report would have been March ninth, however that day got here and went with none motion from Bondi or the White Home. When this omission acquired some consideration, the Division of Justice (DOJ) informed ABC Information that the deadline was prolonged to March sixteenth. Since then, the division has not offered any extra progress updates and didn’t reply to a request for remark for this text.

The administration’s obvious slow-walking and opacity surrounding its progress raises questions on how a lot it plans to comply with by way of with the order’s proposed scope.

Trump promised gun voters swift motion in undoing all of President Biden’s gun-control achievements throughout his “very first week again in workplace.” However he took three weeks earlier than even broaching the topic, and solely ordered a overview to ultimately contemplate which, if any, of his predecessor’s insurance policies to reform or reverse.

So far, that has not resulted within the initiation of any new rulemaking to repeal any Biden-era laws.

The few concrete indications of DOJ compliance with the order have principally taken the type of requests for pauses in numerous ongoing gun circumstances to permit it to think about what place it needs to take. The division additionally started to push for a brand new framework for restoring the gun rights of former convicts. The New York Instances has reported that transfer may gain advantage actor Mel Gibson and at the least 9 different as-yet-undisclosed people, although they haven’t introduced any motion but.

Whereas every of these fronts could ultimately play out in gun-rights advocates’ favor, the administration’s restrained strategy, particularly in distinction to actions it has taken elsewhere, has already resulted in a single important loss for gun-rights teams. Although it might have instantly began rolling again Biden’s gun guidelines with out Bondi’s overview as an intermediate step, the Trump Administration’s choice to attend left the “ghost gun” package ban case uninterrupted. That culminated within the Supreme Courtroom issuing a 7-2 ruling upholding that ban on the finish of final month, which might make undoing the ban down the road tougher.

Delaying authorized challenges whereas the division decides what place to take additionally dangers drawing out the gun-rights motion’s longer-term undertaking of stacking up courtroom choices completely invalidating federal gun legal guidelines. Even when the DOJ decides to not defend a given gun legislation or de-prioritize enforcement, subsequent administrations can merely reverse that discretion. The identical holds true for the brand new gun-rights restoration course of, which dangers undermining gun-rights advocates’ authorized challenges to the federal ban on non-violent felons possessing firearms.

To make certain, the administration has additionally supplied gun voters coverage modifications with extra simple upsides. It unceremoniously allotted with the White Home Workplace of Gun Violence Prevention, for instance, which was arrange by former President Biden to advertise gun-control insurance policies. Trump’s Division of Well being and Human Companies additionally scrapped a 2024 surgeon common advisory calling for an “assault weapon” ban, amongst different new gun restrictions.

It has additionally, at occasions, broadened its view past the federally-focused govt order. As an illustration, the DOJ final month introduced a civil rights investigation into Los Angeles County over its follow of subjecting hid carry allow candidates to prolonged wait occasions and excessive software charges, and it recommended that extra investigations might quickly comply with. Shortly thereafter, Trump additionally issued a separate govt order establishing a brand new federal job drive charged with, amongst different issues, “increas[ing] the velocity and decrease[ing] the price of processing hid carry license requests within the District of Columbia.”

These strikes have little question been welcome developments for Second Modification advocates. Nonetheless, they’re much less doubtlessly impactful than the areas Trump ordered the DOJ to overview, and people have seen little to no motion.