Category: A Victory!
Gun owners have plenty of reasons to be skeptical of politicians who suddenly discover the Second Amendment during election season. We’ve been through this before.
Campaign promises are easy. Following through is where things tend to get complicated.
That makes the second Trump administration worth looking at as a whole rather than judging it by whichever gun story happens to be dominating the news this week. There have been missteps, unresolved issues, and a few decisions that deserve criticism. But taken together, what the administration has done on the Second Amendment since returning to office represents a substantial shift in how the federal government approaches gun rights.
And arguably the biggest change isn’t coming from the White House itself.
It’s coming from the Department of Justice.
DOJ Is Actually Litigating for the Second Amendment
For decades, gun owners became accustomed to seeing the Justice Department on the opposite side of Second Amendment cases.
That’s what makes the creation of a dedicated Second Amendment Section within DOJ’s Civil Rights Division so significant.
The section isn’t merely advisory. DOJ says its mission includes investigating alleged patterns of Second Amendment violations by law enforcement, pursuing litigation, filing statements of interest, intervening in cases, and using amicus briefs to advance a broad interpretation of the right to keep and bear arms.
The federal government isn’t simply declining to defend a particular gun-control law. In several cases, it is actively suing state and local governments over restrictions DOJ believes violate the Second Amendment.
That includes challenges involving Los Angeles County’s handling of concealed carry permits, gun permitting practices in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Washington, D.C.’s ban on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles, Denver’s so-called “assault weapons” ban, Colorado’s magazine restrictions, California’s handgun roster and GLOCK restrictions, Virginia’s recently enacted semi-automatic rifle ban, and Montgomery County, Maryland’s expansive “sensitive place” restrictions.
The Denver rifle-ban lawsuit and Colorado magazine-ban lawsuit are particularly notable because DOJ isn’t dancing around the central issue. The government is arguing that commonly owned semi-automatic rifles and standard-capacity magazines are constitutionally protected arms.
That’s the kind of position gun-rights organizations have been arguing in court for years.
It Started With Trump’s Second Amendment Executive Order
On February 7, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled Protecting Second Amendment Rights, directing the Attorney General to review federal regulations, guidance, policies, international agreements, and other government actions that potentially infringed on the right to keep and bear arms.
That review included Biden-era firearms regulations and enforcement policies.
What could easily have become another symbolic executive order instead produced tangible changes throughout DOJ and ATF.
Among them was the end of the Biden administration’s so-called “zero tolerance” policy toward Federal Firearms Licensees.
The Department of Veterans Affairs also stopped reporting veterans to NICS as prohibited persons solely because they required fiduciary assistance managing their benefits.
Then there was the creation of DOJ’s Second Amendment Section itself.
Those aren’t campaign promises. They’re changes in federal policy.
ATF Has Been Moving in a Very Different Direction
ATF hasn’t exactly enjoyed a warm relationship with America’s gun owners.
That makes the agency’s current regulatory direction particularly interesting.
In April, DOJ and ATF announced a package containing 34 final and proposed rulemaking actions following the administration’s review of federal firearms regulations.
Some of the proposals are fairly technical. Others could have meaningful consequences for gun owners and FFLs.
ATF has moved to clarify the definition of an “unlawful user of or addicted to” a controlled substance, revise rules governing certain non-over-the-counter firearm transactions, and reconsider other regulations affecting dealers and gun owners.
Instead of searching for increasingly creative ways to expand existing statutory language, the agency is now publicly describing its regulatory work in terms of reducing unnecessary burdens and aligning regulations with current law and court precedent.
That’s quite a change from where ATF was only a few years ago.
The National Firearms Act remains one of the more complicated pieces of the administration’s Second Amendment record.
Congress eliminated the $200 tax on suppressors and short-barreled rifles, removing one of the NFA’s most recognizable burdens. Registration, however, remained.
That created an obvious legal problem.
If the tax that historically justified the NFA’s registration scheme disappears, what exactly is the constitutional basis for continuing to require registration?
That question is now being fought in court.
The administration has also taken positions suggesting suppressors receive at least some Second Amendment protection, an important development for challenges to state laws that ban them outright.
More recently, the government’s handling of the consolidated Silencer Shop v. ATF and Jensen v. ATF litigation has raised even bigger questions about whether DOJ intends to continue defending portions of the NFA registration regime.
TTAG covered the latest development when DOJ allowed the stay to expire, putting Silencer Shop’s NFA injunction into effect.
As of August 2026, that story is still developing.
What happens next could be one of the most consequential Second Amendment developments of Trump’s second term.
The Government Is Showing Up in Other Gun Cases, Too
DOJ’s direct lawsuits aren’t the entire story.
The federal government has also increasingly appeared as an amicus in major Second Amendment litigation.
That includes challenges involving so-called “assault weapon” and magazine bans, ammunition background checks, handgun rosters, and restrictions on where lawful gun owners may carry firearms.
The administration filed briefs in Wolford v. Lopez, for example, challenging Hawaii’s restrictions on carrying firearms on private property open to the public.
It has also participated in litigation involving California’s ammunition background-check system and Massachusetts’ handgun roster.
That matters because the Solicitor General and Justice Department carry institutional weight that another amicus brief from a gun-rights organization simply doesn’t.
It also creates something that has historically been missing from Second Amendment litigation: an executive branch willing to tell courts that state and local governments have gone too far.
There Are Still Reasons to Be Critical
None of this means gun owners should stop paying attention.
The administration’s record isn’t spotless.
DOJ has continued defending some federal gun laws, including portions of the NFA and the Gun-Free School Zones Act. Some of that is expected; the Justice Department ordinarily defends federal statutes. But gun owners aren’t obligated to pretend those positions suddenly become good policy because they’re being defended by a Republican administration.
There have also been questionable litigation decisions.
The government’s position on the scope of relief available to members of organizations involved in Second Amendment lawsuits created legitimate concerns about associational standing.
DOJ’s handling of Benson was another unforced error, with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office urging the D.C. Court of Appeals to rehear a favorable Second Amendment decision en banc.
Then there are the pardons that haven’t happened.
Gun-rights advocates have repeatedly raised the cases of individuals such as Patrick Adamiak and Matthew Hoover. Trump has demonstrated no reluctance to use his pardon and commutation authority elsewhere, making the lack of action in some firearms cases increasingly difficult for supporters to ignore.
There have also been comments from Trump and administration officials following high-profile shootings that haven’t exactly inspired confidence among gun owners.
Look at the Whole Scorecard
The mistake is judging the administration’s Second Amendment record based on one lawsuit, one comment, one ATF rule, or one disappointing decision.
Look at the entire scorecard.
The administration ordered a government-wide review of federal firearms policy. DOJ created a section of its Civil Rights Division specifically dedicated to enforcing the Second Amendment. The Justice Department is suing governments over rifle bans, magazine restrictions, handgun rosters, carry permit practices, and sensitive-place laws. The federal government is filing briefs supporting gun-rights challenges nationwide. ATF has reversed enforcement policies and begun unwinding or reconsidering regulations. Congress eliminated the NFA tax on suppressors and SBRs.
There are still significant fights ahead, particularly over the remaining NFA registration requirements and the administration’s willingness to challenge other federal gun laws.
There are also legitimate criticisms that shouldn’t be dismissed simply because the overall trajectory is favorable.
Gun owners have spent decades fighting against the institutional power of the federal government. For perhaps the first time in the modern Second Amendment era, at least part of that institutional machinery is being pointed in the opposite direction.
by Lee Williams
Dave Adamiak, whose son Patrick “Tate” Adamiak has 17 more years left to serve in federal prison, is confused, perplexed and nearing his wit’s end.
While he appreciates all the support his son’s case has drawn—there are hundreds of videos and stories chronicled on his “Freedom for Tate” website—Tate remains is prison.
To date, there has been no formal move to secure his release—despite the kind words of more than a few elected officials.
Adamiak’s family sent a pardon request to Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Justice Department Pardon Attorney Edward J. Martin Jr., along with nearly 2,000 signatures of supporters, who all believe Tate should never have been charged with a crime.
Tate’s name remains on President Donald Trump’s pardon list, unlike hundreds of others. In addition to 301 pardon denials, the Pardon Attorney has said that 5,908 clemency applications were also rejected.
His 20-year prison sentence, too, has received scorn, even from ATF Director Robert Cekada.
Cekada believes Adamiak was mistreated and massively over-sentenced.
“On the facts of this case, the sentence Mr. Adamiak received is excessive. Mr. Adamiak had no prior criminal history. He dealt with these weapons as curios. We have no evidence that he intended to use the weapons unlawfully or that he was part of a criminal organization. The extremely high sentencing guidelines likely reflect the paradigmatic cases of individuals possessing destructive devices, such as grenade launchers, and normally involve terrorism or organized criminal activity. No such conduct was present here. For me, unlawful possession of National Firearms Act items sentences approximately in the three-to-five-year range are common,” he told me just over a month ago.
Cekada is not alone. Six Republican lawmakers sent their own letter to Blanche and Martin seeking Adamiak’s release.
Congresswoman Jen Kiggans along with Congressmen Eli Crane, Eric Burlison, Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S., Rob Bresnahan, Jr., and Daniel Webster were very clear as to their intent:
“We, the undersigned Members of Congress, respectfully request that you work with President Donald Trump to give fair consideration to a commutation request for Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak. We believe that certain inconsistencies in the regulatory framework applied in his case as well as the broader enforcement environment at the time warrant careful review and consideration for executive clemency,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Representatives were extremely clear about Adamiak’s innocence, stating he had “maintained a well‑documented interest in military history and the lawful collection of historic artifacts, replicas, and training devices.”
“The items of concern in his case were inert collector pieces, nonfunctional replicas, and training aids that were incapable of firing,” the letter states.
For reasons that neither he nor his family understand, Adamiak remains housed in the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk, Virginia—a county jail and a dangerous hellhole with none of the amenities of a federal prison.
On the day he first arrived at Tidewater, two guards pepper-sprayed an inmate for little or no reason, rammed his head into a metal door, and then dragged him through the jail until his neck and hand were broken. The jail’s medical staff said the inmate was “unlikely to regain limb control.”
The two guards were later fired and charged with malicious wounding; a Class 3 felony in Virginia involving intentional injury with the intent to maim, disfigure, disable, or kill. They each face up to 20 years in prison and $100,000 in fines.
Attempts to contact Adamiak in this facility were unsuccessful.
Case history
Adamiak, who at the time was an active-duty Navy E-6, was arrested and charged by the ATF during the height of the Biden Administration’s war on guns, gun owners, gun rights and the Second Amendment.
Adamiak had been accepted to attend BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training). Had the ATF left him alone, he would likely be leading a Navy SEAL platoon.
After ATF agents kicked down his doors, they found nothing illegal or even suspected of being illegal. As a result, the ATF brought in a specialist, ATF Firearm Enforcement Officer Jeffrey R. Bodell, who discombobulated the actual items that the agents had found—all of which are still sold legally online, most do not even require an ID—and turned them into machineguns and destructive devices.
Adamiak was charged with illegally possessing a machinegun for a toy STEN submachinegun found during the search warrant. He paid $75 for the non-firing Spanish replica—or toy—which was made by Denix and is still sold online. Bodell inserted a real STEN barrel and receiver, neither Bodell nor his assistant could make it fire more than one round at a time. Despite their hard work, the toy STEN would not even accept a real magazine. Still, Bodell officially ruled that the toy was a machinegun.
Adamiak was charged with illegally possessing two destructive devices, two inert RPGs that had holes drilled into their receivers and were stripped of internal parts. ATF’s “expert” added parts from real RPGs until they would fire a single subcaliber 7.62x39mm round. As a result, he classified the RPGs as destructive devices. The inert RPGs are still legally sold today without an FFL or any other paperwork.
Takeaways
Adamiak and his father are very concerned about an upcoming hearing, which is scheduled for next month before Arenda L. Wright Allen, the federal judge who oversaw his trial and sentenced Adamiak to serve 20 years in prison.
They both doubt Judge Allen will give Tate a fair hearing. She has already precluded his attorney from rehashing much of anything from the trial. Adamiak could actually receive even more time behind bars.
Every day seems to be a constant battle, Dave Adamiak said. While Tate receives verbal support, nothing official is ever done.
Dozens of politicians have said Adamiak should never have been charged, yet he remains in prison.
“What about Tate?” Dave Adamiak asked. “It appears he’s been swept under the rug after all the traffic about his case. Everyone seems to know about it, but nothing is ever done. He’s still in prison—for nothing illegal. He broke no law. He did nothing wrong.”