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Smedley Butler: The Marine Who Earned Two Medals of Honor by Will Dabbs

Major General Smedley Butler collected two Medals of Honor, fought across the globe, battled corruption at home, and later claimed powerful businessmen wanted him at the center of an American coup.

John Wayne portrait illustrating famous Americans who changed their names before the story of Smedley Butler
American movie icon John Wayne likely would not have been nearly so successful had he gone by his given name of Marion. Public domain.

Before Smedley Butler, Let’s Talk About Names

My name is Willis. I might have preferred William, but I didn’t pick it. Mine is a family name. As such things go, it certainly could be worse.

Many famous individuals, particularly actors, often choose a new name if their original names seem insufficiently photogenic. John Wayne entered the world as Marion Robert Morrison. Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach. Michael Caine was Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. Charlie Sheen was Carlos Irwin Estevez. Comedian Jonah Hill was originally Jonah Feldstein. Vin Diesel began life as Mark Sinclair. Diesel changed his name at age seventeen when he became a professional bouncer at a fashionable New York nightclub.

There are countless examples. Famed British actress Helen Mirren was originally Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov. Olivia Wilde was Olivia Jane Cockburn before she became enamored with the playwright Oscar Wilde. Natalie Portman was Natalie Hershlag, but changed her name in a failed effort at protecting her privacy.

Caryn Elaine Johnson had such a problem with passing gas that her coworkers called her “Whoopi Cushion.” When her show business career began to take off, she adopted Whoopi Goldberg because somebody told her that folks with Jewish-sounding names did better in Hollywood. Apparently, it worked. She’s worth $60 million today.

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler in uniform, the two-time Medal of Honor Marine known as Old Gimlet Eye
Major General Smedley Darlington Butler had a pretty goofy name, but he was one seriously manly man. Public domain.

The point is simply that some names can make surviving Second Grade pretty tough. Despite having been saddled with an objectively awkward moniker, Smedley Darlington Butler went on to do some pretty amazing things.

Butler was one of only two Marines in American history to have been awarded the Medal of Honor twice for two different combat engagements. In 1933, he was also tagged to lead a military coup to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. That effort kind of fizzled, but Smedley Butler was nonetheless a simply fascinating guy.

Smedley Butler Before the Legend: A Quaker Goes to War

Smedley Butler was born on 30 July 1881, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was the oldest of three sons born to Quaker parents. Butler was an accomplished athlete in High School, serving as captain of his baseball team and quarterback on the gridiron.

He quit school 38 days before his 17th birthday to enlist in the US Marine Corps. His dad was livid, but the young man was terrified he might miss the Spanish-American War. The administrators at his High School had mercy on him and granted him a diploma anyway.

Young Smedley Butler circa 1898 before beginning his legendary Marine Corps career
Like so many young men of his generation, Smedley Butler was prepared to do whatever it took to go to war. In this case, the young Quaker just lied about his age. Public domain.

Smedley’s dad served in the US House of Representatives for 31 years. He was chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee under Presidents Harding and Coolidge. Having your dad managing the Marine Corps budget likely didn’t hurt the young Jarhead’s career prospects.

The younger Butler lied about his age and was granted a direct commission as a Marine officer. He arrived in Cuba just after the war ended. Butler piddled about the Marine Corps for another year but then mustered out. However, with the Philippine-American War now heating up, the young officer turned around and donned his uniform yet again, this time as a First Lieutenant.

From the Philippines to the Boxer Rebellion

Like many true warriors, Smedley Butler did not handle boredom well. When not in action, he drank excessively. He once got drunk and was relieved of command.

However, in October of 1899, Butler led 300 Marines to seize the town of Noveleta in the Philippines. Though he briefly panicked when his First Sergeant was hit, Butler regained his composure and led his Marines to rout the enemy. Once the carnage abated in the Philippines, Butler headed to China to put down the Boxer Rebellion.

Battle of Tientsin artwork from the Boxer Rebellion where Marine officer Smedley Butler was wounded
There was a time when America looked to its military rather than Hollywood when it needed heroes. Smedley Butler’s combat exploits eventually made it into the papers. Public domain.

During the Battle of Tientsin in the summer of 1900, Lieutenant Butler was shot through the thigh while rescuing a wounded Marine. Despite the grievous nature of his injury, Butler went on to help evacuate several of his troops under fire.

Four enlisted Marines earned the Medal of Honor in this engagement, but Marine officers were, at that time, not eligible for the award. However, Butler was granted the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, which also included a promotion to Captain. He was one of only twenty Marines in the history of the Corps to be so recognized.

Old Gimlet Eye and the Bloody Banana Wars

Having now tasted proper combat, Captain Butler just couldn’t get enough. He fought across Central America and the Caribbean in what has since come to be called the Banana Wars.

Even though Butler and his Marines were protecting American business interests, they still no doubt faced some profoundly fierce combat. Losing Marines in support of the United Fruit Company and similar corporate concerns made a deep and lasting impression.

Smedley Butler with Marine officers at Vera Cruz, Mexico, during the 1914 campaign
Smedley Butler served alongside some legendarily hard men. He is second from the right on the front. Public domain.

In 1903, Butler took a detachment of Marines into Trujillo, Honduras, looking for trouble. Their primary mission was to secure the American consulate there. In a subsequent letter home, he said that he and his Marines were “Prepared to land and shoot everybody and everything that was breaking the peace.”

They landed amidst a 55-hour ongoing firefight between rebels and government forces. They found the American consul hiding in the rafters of the consulate, wrapped in an American flag. Once they got clear of the town with the American diplomat in tow, the opposing forces resumed killing each other.

Smedley Butler and Lieutenant General John Archer Lejeune with Marine officers at Vera Cruz in 1914
Here we see Smedley Butler on the far right. He is sitting next to Lieutenant General John Archer Lejeune. Perhaps that name sounds familiar. Something in the water, maybe? Public domain.

At some point in all this traipsing about the jungle, Smedley Butler contracted a variety of bizarre tropical diseases. While rescuing the American consul, Butler was feverish with something or other and had sunken red eyes.

His men began calling him “Old Gimlet Eye.” A gimlet is either a cocktail made with gin and lime or a small tool designed to bore holes in wood. This was one of several respectful, though unsettling monikers bestowed upon him by his troops.

Vera Cruz and Smedley Butler’s First Medal of Honor

Butler subsequently fought all over South and Central America. He once led his battalion to relieve a besieged city on the island of Grenada while running a 104-degree fever.

In April of 1914, he led his troops in an assault on Vera Cruz, Mexico. The fight roiled across the city and ultimately cost American forces 17 dead and 63 wounded. Along the way, Smedley Butler earned the Medal of Honor.

His citation reads in part, “For distinguished conduct in battle, engagement of Vera Cruz, 22 April 1914. Major Butler was eminent and conspicuous in command of his battalion. He exhibited courage and skill in leading his men through the action of the 22d and in the final occupation of the city.” The rules had obviously been changed by then to allow officers to earn the rarefied decoration.

Haiti and Smedley Butler’s Second Medal of Honor

Six months later, Smedley Butler invaded Haiti. He first arrived in the lawless area around Fort Dipitie with 44 Marines. They were ambushed by a force of 400 indigenous Cacos and, surrounded, fought them off all night long. The following morning, Butler organized an infantry charge that repelled the enemy forces in disarray.

Smedley Butler military decorations showing his two Medal of Honor ribbons
Now here’s something you don’t see every day. This is Smedley Butler’s chest salad. Note the matching Medal of Honor ribbons on the top. Famed General George Patton once opined, “I’d give my immortal soul for that little blue ribbon.”

On 17 November 1915, Butler led an ad hoc battalion of Marines and sailors in an infiltration of Fort Rivière. The subsequent combat was hand-to-hand and pitiless. When they took the fort, 50 Haitians were dead, and Smedley Butler had earned his second Medal of Honor.

Here’s the citation: “For extraordinary heroism in action as Commanding Officer of detachments from the 5th, 13th, 23d Companies and the Marine and sailor detachment from the U.S.S. Connecticut, Major Butler led the attack on Fort Rivière, Haiti, 17 November 1915. Following a concentrated drive, several different detachments of Marines gradually closed in on the old French bastion fort to cut off all avenues of retreat for the Cacos. Reaching the fort on the southern side where there was a small opening in the wall, Major Butler gave the signal to attack, and Marines from the 15th Company poured through the breach, engaged the Cacos, took the bastion, and crushed the Cacos resistance.”

World War I Passed Him By, but Smedley Butler Kept Fighting

Butler was not granted a combat command during World War 1. There were several reasons for this, some political and others practical. Along the way, he had developed a reputation for erratic behavior. Butler subsequently came home to command the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia.

Major General Smedley Butler speaking after leaving the Marine Corps and criticizing American military adventurism
After he left the military, Smedley Butler occupied himself speaking out against American adventurism. Public domain.

From Marine General to Philadelphia’s Crime Fighter

This was a different time. In 1924, W. Freeland Kendrick had been elected mayor of Philadelphia and faced a city awash in Prohibition-driven corruption.

President Calvin Coolidge therefore released General Butler to serve as the city’s Director of Public Safety in charge of both fire and police forces. Butler reassigned his police officers to unfamiliar precincts to upset the inevitable protection rackets he knew to be active.

In his first two days on the job, Butler’s cops raided 900 illegal liquor clubs. He was quoted as having told his officers, “I don’t believe there is a single bandit notch on a policeman’s gun in this city; go out and get some.” I wonder how that might go over today….

The Business Plot: Smedley Butler’s Strangest Battle

Butler eventually retired and became an outspoken critic of war profiteering. In November of 1934, Butler claimed that there was a plot afoot led by prominent American businessmen to field a 500,000-man army of military veterans and march on Washington, depose FDR, and install MG Butler as dictator.

Along the way, Butler named names. The alleged conspirators dismissed the claims as bluff and bluster, but subsequent evidence came to light that lent credence to the plot. Regardless, Butler’s testimony before a House committee drove those behind it back into the shadows. Historians now call this sordid episode the Business Plot.

Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler USMC, legendary Marine and two-time Medal of Honor recipient
Smedley Butler lived hard, and he died hard. He was a legendary Marine. Public domain.

The Fighting Quaker’s Final Years and Legacy

Major General Butler finally retired to Newton Township, Pennsylvania, with his wife. In 1940, he fell ill and was found to be suffering from what was likely stomach cancer. He had a drinking history, and videos I tracked down in preparing this article sounded like he was a smoker as well.

Smedley Butler with the Philadelphia Police baseball team circa 1925
MG Butler also liked his baseball. Public domain.

“The Fighting Quaker,” also known as “Old Gimlet Eye,” succumbed to his disease in June of 1940. He was 58 years old. A real “Break Glass in Case of War” Marine, Smedley Butler was indeed a Leatherneck’s Leatherneck.

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HUH!!!!!!!!

650-Pound Blue Marlin Caught off San Diego Coast Breaks State Fishing Record

 It took a crew of anglers to land a catch for the record books off the coast of San Diego this week — a 648-pound blue marlin, smashing the California state fishing record.

The sports fishing charter, piloted by 32-year-old captain Alec Stockfelt, showed up at the docks of the Southern California city earlier this week, wowing onlookers as the nearly half dozen fisherman wrestled the giant fish to a weigh station at Fisherman’s Landing.

The previous blue marlin sports fishing title holder weighed in at 395, caught in the waters off San Diego in 2021.

The previous record at that location for any fish caught was some 598 pounds, the captain said.

An adult male grizzly bear weighs about 600 pounds, for comparison.

Anglers and captains expect 2026 to be a robust year for records due to El Niño weather patterns bringing in more exotic sea life.

Marlin belong to a rare group, less than 1% of fish species, that exhibit regional endothermy. They maintain a “heater organ” near the eyes and brain. This organ keeps neural tissue warm even when the fish dives into cold, deep waters to hunt.

In addition, this warm-blooded adaptation gives them a massive neurological advantage. Their visual processing and reaction times remain sharp at depth. Therefore, they can detect and pursue prey far more effectively than their cold-blooded targets.

The Pacific blue marlin world record, caught off Kona, Hawaii in 1982, stands at 1,376 pounds.

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All About Guns Cops HUH! Interesting stuff

The Gun Show I Didn’t Recognize A Boomer Gets an Education By Brent Wheat

Gun culture isn’t necessarily what we think it is. Brent Wheat got an unexpected education
at a recent gun show. Photo illustration via Google Gemini

I’ve been going to gun shows for a long, long time. I’ve bought guns there, sold guns, worked, written and generally spent enough time wandering their aisles. I know the territory. I knew the sights and sounds, the merchandise and the characters.

I have talked to the guy with the old Winchester for sale, the collector looking for a particular Colt and the bargain hunter who wanted to dicker over two dollars. I’m not exactly a tourist.

This weekend, however, I felt like I journeyed someplace I’d never been. The building, tables and guns were familiar, but the people, the language and the overall vibe felt totally foreign. I had the odd sensation of visiting the place I grew up and finding they’d bulldozed it flat to build an amusement park.

At the show there were a surprising number of young people attending, and after a few hours, I began to realize it wasn’t simply a newer generation of the gun culture I knew. I was looking at a completely different universe.

Sadly, because I wasn’t selling anything of interest to this crowd, I had plenty of time to observe. True fact: my total gross sales on Sunday amounted to $33. You can understand why I spent a lot of time watching and listening.

The first thing that caught my attention was the hardware. There were AR-15 pistols everywhere, including some so short that calling them firearms seemed almost laughable. Most were dressed up in ways I considered unusual (for me, anyway): bright red muzzle devices, gaudy buffer tubes and gold or other flashy Cerakote finishes and accessories chosen as much for appearance as function.

GLOCKs were everywhere, too, stuck down the front of low-slung pants or sometimes carried under shoulders on elastic cord. Nearly all of them sported long stick magazines, and I soon learned white 33-round magazines have become something of a major status symbol.

None of this is particularly difficult to understand from a purely commercial standpoint. If somebody wants a red muzzle device or a GLOCK drum magazine and is willing to pay for it, there’s a market. In fact, the guy across from me was selling extended magazines faster than he could operate his cash register.

Hardware Just the Beginning

For most of my life, firearms have generally been an extension of an existing interest or identity. A hunter buys a shotgun because he hunts, the collector buys an old Colt because he’s fascinated by Colts and the competitive shooter buys equipment because he wants to shoot faster.

However, what I saw was something different — the gun was more of a symbol of the identity, a significant artifact, rather than a means to an end.

Granted, there was a fair amount of what I can only describe as posing. Some of the young guys were clearly trying very hard to look hard, adopting street language and mannerisms that seemed slightly disconnected from the suburban environment from which they appeared to have emerged.

We overheard a couple of conversations that were so obviously performative we had to laugh. There is something almost endearing about a kid trying desperately to convince the world that he’s a dangerous hard-bangin’ street tough when his private speech and mannerisms suggest he is addicted to Starbucks caramel mocha latte with extra sprinkles.

But even this illustrated something important: the guns weren’t simply being purchased as a vehicle to accomplish something. They were part of building a certain persona almost every young person desperately wants to advertise to the world.

Some of it was harmless. Unfortunately, I’d wager some of it wasn’t.

Cop Talk

This is where I have to acknowledge my own bias. I was a police officer for 30 years, and cops develop a pretty strong radar for people who are up to no good. It isn’t magic, and I’ll wholly, completely admit it isn’t infallible. It’s a collection of observations: clothing, speech, body language, associations, how someone handles a firearm, how they react to other people and what they say when they don’t realize anyone is listening.

Any one of those things by itself usually means nothing. But, put enough of them together, and it usually means quite a bit.

I saw people with possible gang affiliation and young men handling guns with very little apparent familiarity or discipline but much overt bravado. I overheard countless conversations — using language I couldn’t even begin to print on this website — that didn’t sound anything like the traditional gun-show crowd discussing hunting or the relative merits of a 1911 versus a 2011.

And I wasn’t the only person noticing. My booth partner quickly observed it, too, as did several other vendors. Granted, nobody was standing around making grand declarations about criminals taking over the show. The comments were quieter — the kind of knowing observations and glances exchanged between people who were seeing the same thing but didn’t need to explain it to one another.

I don’t know what crimes any of these people may or may not have committed. I don’t know what they intended to do with the guns they bought and carried. I won’t turn a haircut, a bandana or a manner of speaking into evidence of criminal activity.

But I also refuse to pretend that 30 years of law enforcement street experience suddenly became worthless because I can’t put a name and case number to something I saw for two minutes.

I witnessed some people who looked like they were playing a part, some who appeared to be perfectly legitimate young gun owners and some whose combination of behavior, conversation, appearance and equipment gave me a very strong feeling that their reasons for acquiring firearms weren’t particularly wholesome.

I trust that assessment, though you should never confuse it with proof. Having said all that, I came away from the gun show with a generally bad feeling.

Trouble Brewing?

One of the more memorable moments involved a boy who appeared to be about 12 or 13 years old. He picked out a 33-round GLOCK magazine and his mother (who seemed much more concerned about her phone conversation than Junior’s intended purchase) paid for it. There was nothing furtive about it, and nobody seemed particularly concerned. To them, this was apparently a normal Saturday activity.

I’ve been around guns long enough that a kid being interested in firearms doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, it usually inspires me a bit. I was interested in guns as a youngster, and most people reading this were, too. But I found myself wondering what this particular kid believed the magazine represented and why Mom showed zero interest.

Maybe this kid was a graduate of a 4-H shooting class or hunter education and was simply fascinated by extended magazines for the pistol he could someday legally own. But based on my observations, I don’t believe this was the case.

What disturbed me most were the two people with brass catchers attached to their “pistols.” Now, a brass catcher isn’t inherently suspicious. Competitive shooters and reloaders use them; heck, I’ve got one around here someplace. Anyone who has spent an afternoon crawling around a range looking for spent cases understands the appeal.

However, context matters.

These men weren’t competitive shooters, as far as I could tell, and they weren’t standing around discussing reloading or buying powder. They were part of a group of questionable-looking young men who had already caught my attention for all the wrong reasons.

Maybe there was an innocent explanation, and I hope there was. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t wonder whether those pistols were intended for some future unsavory purpose.

Maybe they didn’t want to leave evidence behind after a crime or maybe they simply wanted to be like their video heroes; I have no idea. Either way, it was disheartening.

Hard Questions

Unfortunately, I can’t magically divide these people neatly into responsible gun owners and potential problems. There is no algorithm to tell us which ones will become the next generation of hunters, competitors, collectors and responsible gun owners, and which ones will become the people the rest of us have to answer for.

But there’s another question at work: If firearms are increasingly becoming identity markers rather than tools — objects that tell the world something about who you are — what happens to the culture that traditionally gave those tools their meaning?

For most of us who grew up around guns, the firearm was the beginning of the conversation. What came next was the important part: hunting, competition, collecting, training, craftsmanship or simply the pleasure of shooting. The gun was a tool that connected us to something else.

What happens when the gun itself becomes a prop?

What I do know is this: this weekend represents how a number of younger people view firearms, whether traditional gun people like it or not. They view firearms primarily as props, status symbols, emblems and even tools of intimidation. Whether they intend to commit crimes or simply want to look the part, the effect is the same: it throws gun ownership in a negative light.

I’ve never seen a gun-owning group quite like this.

Ignoring or overlooking it won’t make it disappear, and pretending it isn’t part of gun culture doesn’t make it any less real.

I don’t particularly like it. I don’t endorse a lot of what I saw, and some of it genuinely concerns and angers me. I’m not going to profess otherwise just to make this piece more politically palatable. But if the firearms industry and shooting community want to understand this generation, we’d better start paying attention, even to the parts we want to ignore or pretend don’t exist.

The uncomfortable truth is that gun culture doesn’t belong exclusively to the people who built the version I grew up in. If people use firearms to construct identity, project status or signal affiliation, that’s part of the culture too, whether we approve of it or not.

And before anyone (inevitably) accuses me of being an old guy complaining about young people, let me acknowledge every generation has its own version of such things. Young men have always used clothes, cars, music and other objects to announce who they think they are. What’s different here is the object and its potential for destruction.

I walked into the gun show thinking I generally understood the gun world. I walked out realizing I only understood my corner of it and for that weekend, I was clearly a stranger in a strange land.

But, then again, maybe I wasn’t visiting a strange land at all — maybe I was getting a glimpse of the future, at least one possible future.

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I WANT ONE ASAP!!! Interesting stuff

Yeah! I’d commute in that.

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Ammo Interesting stuff

American Icon Andy Griffith reloading shotgun shells. I’m sure not many celebrities do this today….just a guess.

My guess is that what with the high price of Ammo in LA. That a few of those folks do! Grumpy

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Interesting stuff

The Rifleman: Hunting with Townsend Whelen

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All About Guns Interesting stuff Manly Stuff

This Affordable 12.5 inch .308 Pistol Is Painfully Fun | Adams Arms P2

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All About Guns Interesting stuff

Big LION down on our first day of safari. .404 Jeffrey what a rifle!

Now I have always wanted to go to Africa and bag me a Cape Buffalo & that’s it. But the closest I got was to go to Egypt. Which was a lot of fun by the way and I really recommend going there.

But life got in my way and now with a broken back, well it ain’t going to happen for me. Also PLEASE do not send me a  gee Grumpy I’m sorry about that comment. As I have had a lot more fun in my life than I thought I would.

So bottom line is my advice to you is this. If you get a chance then go! Enough said now on this subject.  Grumpy

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Interesting stuff Some Red Hot Gospel there!

Because that would be wrong!

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A Victory! All About Guns Anti Civil Rights ideas & "Friends" COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good News for a change! Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad Interesting stuff Manly Stuff One Hell of a Good Fight Some Red Hot Gospel there! Stand & Deliver

Like It or Not, Trump Is Delivering on the Second Amendment by Scott Witner

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.