For Deterrence and Self-Defense, Trump DOJ Rules to Restore Gun Rights

President Trump hammered many campaign promises during his 2024 presidential campaign and protecting 2nd Amendment rights was prominent among them.  To that end, this past week the Trump Administration took a major step in the area of gun rights.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced this past week that the Department of Justice has issued an interim final rule that will assume and take back from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) the responsibility to decide whether to restore gun ownership rights to individuals whose 2nd Amendment rights were taken from them. 

For many years, Americans whose gun rights have been revoked could petition the U.S. Attorney General to have their rights restored under federal law 18 U.S.C. 925 (c).  However, the power to make that determination was eventually delegated to the ATF.

I note that I was working in D.C. in the Congress for the late U.S. Congressman and Public Service Commissioner, Clyde C. Holloway, when, as noted by The Epoch Times, “in October 1992 then-Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—now the Senate Minority Leader—amended an ATF funding bill to prohibit the agency from using federal funds to process applications for the restoration of gun rights.  Congressional leaders justified the Schumer amendment by saying the applications distracted ATF personnel from their primary task of enforcing gun laws.  As a result, no applications to restore Second Amendment rights were processed for more than 30 years.” (Michael Clements, The Epoch Times, 3-26-2025).

The new rule will effectively “bypass decades of congressional funding restrictions that prevented the ATF from processing applications” by shifting those responsibilities to the DOJ.  “Some states violate citizens’ Second Amendment rights [with state gun laws].  Did they rob a bank? Were they domestic abusers? No,” Luis Valdes, a former police officer and a spokesman for Gun Owners of America (GOA), told The Epoch Times, “now, they’re able to have their rights fully restored.”

Many citizens had previously been restricted by a lifetime gun ban for “nothing more than violating the ATF’s zero-tolerance policy or were convicted of a non-violent gun crime” under what were arguably unconstitutional gun laws in various states throughout the country.

Critics of this rule change argue that it will “put guns back in the hands of domestic abusers and violent criminals.” However, the interim rule states that the DOJ will individually review each application to ensure people who should not have guns can’t obtain them.  “The Department simultaneously recognizes that no constitutional right is limitless; consequently, it also supports existing laws that ensure, for example, that violent and dangerous persons remain disabled from lawfully acquiring firearms.”

I returned to the 2nd Amendment this week because I always find it curious to see the lengths that government at every level is willing to go to limit the full reach of the Second Amendment, and how uninformed many state and federal officials are concerning the purpose of the 2nd Amendment: to allow citizens the ability to individually and personally protect themselves from the government, and to allow citizens the opportunity to protect themselves from others when the government fails to protect them.

As Thomas Jefferson said,“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” (Thomas Jefferson, letter to William S. Smith, 1787).  Let’s recall that with the tyranny of King George III fresh and in the forefront of their minds, the Framers intended the 2nd Amendment to limit the government’s power to restrict weapons, not the citizen’s right to possess weapons, weapons which may be necessary to protect themselves from the government.   

Let’s also recall that the 2008 Supreme Court Heller decision held that the right to keep and bear arms was both a collective (military and law enforcement) right as well as an individual right.   Again, the Second Amendment is a limitation on the government’s power to regulate weapons, not on the citizen’s right to possess weapons.

If there is a compelling safety or security issue that justifies depriving an unstable individual from owning and possessing a firearm, that is one thing. However, the idea that a less-than-compelling determination has stripped an American citizen of their constitutional right to keep and bear arms is simply unacceptable.  It is the right to keep and bear arms that makes all other human rights defensible.

It is encouraging to see this proposed new rule.