President Donald Trump ran for office as a pro-Second Amendment candidate. His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, was most definitely not. She'd supported at least two gun bans publicly in the past and while she tried to position herself as a gun owner, no one really bought it.
We all know how that turned out, though, and with a president in office who ran as pro-gun, there are some things we expect to see.
So far, there have been some hiccups, but things are starting to move in the right direction.
If that was all, it would be enough, but the Trump White House is going a little farther than just that.
It started here, following FBI Assistant Director Dan Bongino's visit to the ATF:
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. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/L6gjmbYC1C
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 21, 2025
And then, about 12 hours later, we got this:
What a difference a new President can make! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Qyw5UCs2mV
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 21, 2025
Yeah, he's trolling Biden.
Not that Biden can stop from pooping his pants long enough to read it, or that he even remembers how to read on most days, but it's still a troll and Biden's supporters can still read it. And they can cope and seethe.
Bongino's comments on his own post are equally important.
The ATF is the only federal law enforcement agency that exists, even in part, to regulate a constitutionally protected right. No other agency does anything close to that and it's a source of tension between gun rights supporters and the ATF. After all, they exist to regulate something we argue shouldn't be regulated, at least not as severely as it has been.
That's only made worse by the fact that rather than investigate actual criminals, the ATF seems to focus most of its attention on law-abiding gun owners or in taking credit for arrests made by local police.
Bongino's comments, however, suggest that the ATF and/or the FBI will start devoting more of its efforts toward illegally armed criminals, the people who cause the problems in the first place, rather than law-abiding gun owners. That would be a nice change of pace.
Couple this with moves by Bondi, including the Department of Justice potentially backing off on their claim that suppressors aren't arms and are therefore not covered by the Second Amendment and the appointment of pro-Second Amendment scholar Robert Leider as chief counsel for the ATF, and we're actually starting to get a taste of what a pro-Second Amendment administration is like.
It's making me more than a little eager to find out just what is next. Will it be something else on suppressors or machine guns? Will it be the government trying to intervene in assault weapon ban challenges by arguing states are wrong? Will it be something else? I don't know and while I'm sure that the White House isn't following my priorities in the least, I'm hopeful that things will continue down this path.
Now it just highlights how unserious most other administrations were about protecting the right to keep and bear arms.
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