The trade association for the firearms industry is lauding the Trump Administration’s decision to set up a special office within the Department of Justice dedicated to protecting Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
In a December 2 news item, Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), said that for the first time, the Civil Rights Division is being “directed to treat the Second Amendment as what it is: a civil right deserving active protection.” That’s a big departure from the Biden Administration.
“The contrast with former President Joe Biden’s White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention is remarkable,” Keane wrote in the news story. “Created in September 2023 and overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris, that office was explicitly designed to coordinate ‘gun violence prevention’ across the federal government, drive new executive actions on gun policy and implement a whole-of-government attack on the lawful and highly regulated firearm industry. It pushed measures like expanded use of so-called ‘red flag’ laws that deny due process rights, pressured states to create their own ‘gun violence offices’ and reinterpreted who counts as being ‘engaged in the business’ of selling firearms.”
As Keane pointed out, the new initiative by the Trump Administration addresses the Second Amendment from a different viewpoint.
“The DOJ’s new Second Amendment Rights Section starts from the premise that the right to keep and bear arms is a freedom to be protected,” Keane wrote. “It has been tasked with enforcing constitutional guarantees when state and local officials slow-walk concealed carry permits, weaponize licensing schemes and otherwise treat law-abiding gun owners and federally licensed retailers as adversaries rather than citizens or engage in lawfare against lawful firearms businesses through unconstitutional gun control-backed laws that try to circumvent the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).”
To the NSSF, the initiative is an important one, especially for those in the firearms industry who have been under siege for so long.
“For manufacturers, distributors, retailers and ranges, the creation of the Second Amendment Rights Section matters in practical, day-to-day ways,” Keane wrote. “While Biden-era enforcement campaigns that turned minor clerical errors into ‘gotcha’ revocations are being reassessed, the ATF has been instructed to align its regulatory posture with the Constitution, not the wish lists of gun control organizations.”
As Keane also pointed out, the new initiative is part of the Trump Administration’s broader pro-Second Amendment agenda.
“The ATF earlier confirmed it scrapped the Biden-era ‘Zero Tolerance’ enforcement policy and replaced it with a fairer administrative action framework. License revocations due to minor, clerical paperwork errors are no longer the default, and firearm retailers who lost their licenses under the old policy are invited to reapply under the new standard.
At the White House level, President Trump did exactly what the industry had urged: He closed the Office of Gun Violence Prevention within days of taking office, ending an unprecedented experiment in embedding gun-control activism inside the West Wing.”
Ultimately, Keane wrote that the gun industry has long been a part of the solution, not the problem. And it’s gratifying that the administration realizes that.
“The firearm industry will continue to do what it has always done: promote responsible ownership, invest billions in conservation, focus on firearm safety and serve the lawful market that makes exercising Second Amendment rights possible,” he concluded. “The DOJ’s new gun rights office is a positive, welcome sign that Washington, D.C., is finally beginning to recognize our efforts are part of the solution.”
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