As Cam talked about on Tuesday, the Department of Justice is looking to ease a few gun restrictions. The reason is pretty simple. The midterms are coming up, and they want gun rights voters excited and turning out in massive numbers.
I get it. I truly do.
And the DOJ has done more for gun rights than any other DOJ in my memory, at least. The problem is that the bar wasn’t exactly difficult to clear. An ant couldn’t limbo under it, for crying out loud.
So let’s look, first, at some of the ideas being floated.
According to The Post, several proposals would fall under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
They include revisiting which firearms can be imported, adjusting licensing fees to make them refundable, and possibly changing application forms to require applicants to list their biological sex at birth.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s annual gun trade show opens today in Las Vegas, one of the largest gatherings in the industry. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is scheduled to speak.
President Donald Trump has aligned himself closely with gun rights groups such as Gun Owners of America. At the same time, his administration has proposed cutting hundreds of positions from the ATF, reducing the number of inspectors overseeing gun sellers.
I don’t give a damn about listing biological sex on the forms, personally. It doesn’t impact most of us, so that’s nothing but red meat for their base, but not actually doing anything for gun rights.
Revisiting which arms can be imported would be nice, sure, but anything the DOJ does unilaterally can be undone by the next anti-gun administration. It doesn’t matter if it’s changes in the paperwork or making fees refundable. They’re nice, but they’re likely to be temporary.
What I’d like to see the DOJ do instead is to simply stop defending blatantly unconstitutional federal gun control laws.
While the DOJ has gone after state and local governments for their anti-gun efforts, it’s also defended federal laws and regulations as if they’re sacrosanct, and they’re not.
Bondi’s office has defended every single one of them, including continued NFA registration for suppressors and short-barreled long guns. That’s a choice her office has made, and that’s really where the DOJ would do well to look if the desire is to appease gun rights advocates.
The blanket lifting of import bans and refunding fees would be a lovely start, and we’d all be overjoyed to see it happen, but I’m not deluded enough to expect it to stick.
A court victory because the DOJ has decided that the laws they were defending are unconstitutional, however, lasts a lifetime. That’s something that can’t simply be undone by the next anti-gun attorney general.
Unlike the left, I’m not stupid enough to believe we’re going to see 1,000 years of my side calling the shots. I want wins in Congress and in the courts. Those are the ones that can’t be easily undone, and that’s what will really get the pro-gun side fired up.
It’s not rocket science, after all. Give us real change for the better, and we’ll be happy. Try to placate us with half measures, and don’t be surprised when we yawn at your efforts.
Editor’s Note: For the most part, President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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