The attorney general said the president directed her to propose a plan of action designed ’to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.’
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced the establishment of a task force aimed at protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens.
“For too long, the Second Amendment, which establishes the fundamental individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms, has been treated as a second-class right. No more,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi wrote in a Tuesday memorandum to all DOJ employees.
“President [Donald] Trump has made protecting the Second Amendment rights a priority for this administration,” she said.
The attorney general said the president directed her to propose a plan of action designed “to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.”
Bondi said the prime objective of the “Second Amendment Task Force” is to develop policies and legal strategies to “advance, protect, and promote compliance with the Second Amendment.”
The task force, chaired by Bondi, will consist of staff members from her office and from the Deputy and Assistant AGs’ offices, from the Solicitor General’s office, the Civil Division, the Civil Rights Division, the Criminal Division, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the FBI.
Personnel from additional agencies may be summoned to assist in the task force’s operations as needed.
Trump’s Executive Order
The task force serves to implement Trump’s Executive Order 14206, “Protecting Second Amendment Rights,” which instructed the attorney general to review all of the Biden administration’s firearms-related actions.
In a Wednesday press release, Bondi said the “prior administration placed an undue burden on gun owners and vendors by targeting law-abiding citizens exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.”
On Monday, the ATF said it had repealed President Joe Biden’s Enhanced Regulatory Enforcement Policy. The 2021 initiative—also known as the “Zero Tolerance Policy”—set strict inspection standards for arms dealers and allowed the ATF to revoke licenses over minor clerical errors that were previously considered excusable.
“This Department of Justice believes that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right,” Bondi said in an ATF press release.
“The prior administration’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy unfairly targeted law-abiding gun owners and created an undue burden on Americans seeking to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms—it ends today,” she said.
By Wim De Gent
