Today, Sunday, July 20, marks the six-month anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Just half a year in, and he’s already etched a few worthwhile notches in his presidential legacy. Illegal immigration is down, and border security is up. Billions in federal bloat have been cut, with many more wasteful spending items and jobs on the chopping block. And, of course, he managed back-to-back historic wins with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the first – but not the last – round of DOGE rescissions. But, as impressive as those accomplishments may be, it’s all the sort of thing that has been done before – albeit not in a long time. Where President Trump really stands out is in his fight for gun rights.
The Right to Bear Arms Is the Right to Life and Liberty
The Second Amendment to the US Constitution reads:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
It’s an idea derived directly from the rights laid out in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Can one be said to enjoy a God-given right to life and liberty if there exists no complementary right to defend it? This much was clear to the Founders and most of their immediate successors, and so the Second Amendment stood as America’s only nationwide firearm “law” for the first 146 years of the Republic.
But all good things must come to an end, as the saying goes. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the other progressive Democrats who controlled both chambers of Congress figured out a way around those pesky safeguards in the Constitution. They couldn’t attack gun rights head-on, but in 1934, FDR signed into law the National Firearms Act (NFA), regulating the ownership of certain types of firearms (and accessories) as well as the manufacture and sale thereof. Ostensibly a tax bill, as that’s the only power to regulate firearms Congress has, it technically kept the right in place while making it so expensive to exercise that most Americans were simply priced out.
Trump Targets Gun Control
For 91 years, the NFA stood as a legitimized, court-sanctioned infringement on American gun rights. Even now, it remains, to some degree – as do the various updates to it, like the Gun Control Act of 1964, the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993. But through the so-called big, beautiful bill, President Trump and Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress managed to gut the NFA, at least in part, by reducing the $200 tax to transfer a short-barreled rifle (SBR), short-barreled shotgun (SBS), or silencer to $0.
Yes, those who hope to own such an item must still apply through the ATF and be placed on the registry – for now – but the fee is gone, and that justified the lawsuit immediately filed by a coalition of gun rights advocacy groups to remove these items from the law entirely.
More than a dozen presidents – six of whom were Republicans – have served between FDR and Trump, yet in all their years in office, none accomplished for the right to keep and bear arms what Trump has achieved in his first half-year back in office.
And that isn’t all. The Supreme Court justices appointed in his first term brought about one of the most impactful rulings for gun rights in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. The 6-3 decision established a new framework for evaluating gun laws, requiring them to be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations. In short, firearm regulations are now harder to justify constitutionally.
Numerous cases challenging the various federal rules are already winding their way through the court system because of it – and now the big, beautiful bill brings another.
Second Amendment for All
Following through on a presidential directive from the beginning of the year, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday, July 18, yet another historic first. While the NFA regulated machine guns and certain other items through tax, the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) ended the nation’s 180-year streak of not restricting who could own guns of any kind. Since ’68, however, convicted felons, drug addicts, minors, and those deemed mentally incompetent have been prohibited from owning firearms. There was, of course, a way to undo it – again, even anti-gun Democrats controlling the presidency and both houses of Congress haven’t been able to ban guns entirely yet.
One of the mechanisms for restoring gun rights is executive clemency – the pardon. The president can clear federal crimes, while governors handle state charges. But there was another way, as well.
Initially, felons could apply for relief with the secretary of the Treasury. In 1968, that authority was delegated to the commissioner of the IRS, and it went to the newly formed ATF in 1975. In 2002, the law was changed, transferring the power from the Treasury secretary to the attorney general, who then, a year later, delegated it back to the ATF.
However, since 1992, Congress has included a rider in the annual ATF appropriations that forbids the agency from using any of its money to investigate or act on those applications.
On March 20 of this year, though, AG Bondi announced a new rule reclaiming this authority. Last Friday, she submitted the rule to the Federal Register.
“For too long, countless Americans with criminal histories have been permanently disenfranchised from exercising the right to keep and bear arms—a right every bit as constitutionally enshrined as the right to vote, the right to free speech, and the right to free exercise of religion—irrespective of whether they actually pose a threat,” Bondi said in Friday’s statement. “No longer.”
Soon, those who have had their right to keep and bear arms suppressed by the GCA will be able to apply to the attorney general’s office to have their rights restored – no pardon needed.
Changing Tides for Gun Rights
From gutting the NFA and working around the GCA to inspiring and backing Second Amendment challenges to state firearm regulations across the nation and cutting both regulations and jobs at the ATF, the Trump administration and today’s GOP trifecta are changing the tides of gun rights in America. And there’s no indication they plan to stop anytime soon. What’s to expect next is anyone’s guess – but it’s an exciting time for anyone who enjoys the right to keep and bear arms.
Dig Deeper Into the Themes Discussed in This Article!
Liberty Vault: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen
Liberty Vault: The Constitution of the United States
Liberty Vault: The Declaration of Independence
