Trump Attacked for Gun Rights Executive Order

We all knew it was coming and on Friday, President Donald Trump delivered. He directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to end just about everything the previous administration did to infringe on our right to keep and bear arms.

Nothing has actually happened yet, but how could it?

Well, I won’t say “nothing” has happened. We’ve had all the expected wailing and gnashing of teeth, after all.

And that includes through the media.

The directive given by Trump requires U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to comprehensively review the gun policies and stances from the previous administration and the Justice Department, including any executive orders made by President Joe Biden and the DOJ’s engagement in “all ongoing and potential litigation” concerning firearms.

As reported by The Trace, on the agenda for potential cuts are several of Biden’s major initiatives aimed at curbing gun violence. These include rules on ghost guns, the expansion of background checks for gun purchases, and increased regulation of gun dealers who break the law.

“Trump’s priorities couldn’t be more clear. Spoiler: it’s not protecting kids.”

According to the publication, which specializes in tracking gun violence in the U.S.:

Though many of Biden’s policies are already in place, they face continual legal challenges. Trump’s executive order also mandates the attorney general to reevaluate the Justice Department’s commitment to defending these regulations in court. This includes everything from age restrictions on firearm purchases to prohibitions against gun ownership by felons. Following a 2022 Supreme Court decision that significantly broadened gun rights, federal gun laws have been under relentless judicial scrutiny.

If the Justice Department opts not to defend existing federal laws, the likelihood of these laws being declared unconstitutional could substantially increase.

Gun control advocates have strongly condemned the executive order, warning that Trump’s reversal of the limited progress made under Biden signifies an endorsement of further tragedy and suffering for Americans, including vulnerable children often caught in gunfire.

“Trump’s priorities couldn’t be more clear. Spoiler: it’s not protecting kids,” remarked Natalie Fall, executive director of March For Our Lives. “Gun deaths finally decreased last year, and now Trump is set on reversing the policies that contributed to that decline.”

Except The Trace isn’t a source that “specializes in tracking gun violence in the U.S.” so much as works to advance gun control in the United States. That’s their mission, plain and simple. They don’t even really try to hide it that much.

Framing it that way is just a way to downplay the anti-gun animosity the site has toward the right to keep and bear arms.

But let’s look at some of the claims reported.

First, the Biden executive orders didn’t impact lawful gun sales. At most, they impacted privately made firearms to some degree, but we know definitively that those are used in only a small fraction of firearm-related crimes, and the actual numbers may be lower than it might otherwise seem since only a handful of guns have been recovered from crime scenes, but that doesn’t actually mean they were all used in any crime directly.

Further, Fall claims that gun deaths “finally decreased last year,” but that implies that they’ve been either steady in number or increasing. They haven’t been. While so-called gun deaths–deaths resulting from a gunshot regardless of who pulled the trigger or why–jumped up in 2020 and again in 2021, they dropped in 2022 slightly. Then in 2023, we saw a bigger drop. Then, according to The Trace, 2024 saw another drop.

So no, this wasn’t the first drop in years. 

What we saw during the pandemic was the anomaly and the numbers are starting to correct because that whole period was kind of psychotic in a lot of ways. 

And all of these “gun death” totals were higher than they were under Trump. Those Biden orders weren’t in place and the death rate was lower, which suggests that the orders aren’t really playing a role at all.

That’s my definitive take, but I get that the people at The Trace won’t see it that way.

Neither will the mainstream media that are attacking Trump for repealing executive overreach, all as they claim he’s a fascist. Funny that.