President Donald Trump issued an executive order on February 7 in an apparent step toward fulfilling his campaign promises to roll back four years of gun reforms under his predecessor.
On the chopping block are several high-profile attempts by former President Joe Biden to reduce gun violence, including regulations on ghost guns, expanded background checks on gun sales, and tougher regulatory oversight of lawbreaking gun dealers.
The executive order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to conduct a review within 30 days “to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens.” After that, Bondi is expected to present a plan to undo any policies the administration believes violate gun rights.
Trump lists seven categories for the attorney general to review. The first is wide-ranging and includes all of Biden’s executive actions as well as any gun-related action he directed agencies to take under his watch. The remaining categories lay out a laundry list of Biden administration policies that drew ire from gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade group.
“Promises made to law-abiding gun owners are being kept by President Donald J. Trump,” Doug Hamlin, the NRA’s executive vice president and CEO, said in a statement. “NRA members were instrumental, turning out in record numbers to secure his victory, and he is proving worthy of their votes, faith, and confidence in his first days in office.”
Gun reform advocates, who have been bracing for Trump to turn his eye toward gun issues since his inauguration, immediately criticized the executive order. Mark Collins, the national policy director for the gun reform group Brady, said that if the attorney general’s review is objective, her findings would support the policies’ constitutionality.
“They were perfectly in line with Second Amendment rights, and we’re hoping that at the end of this review, there might be some restraint and objectivity,” Collins said. “Maybe they’re planning to roll back everything, which is a really bad idea especially considering that we just went through the sharpest drop in gun homicides in modern American history. It seems wild that you would roll back all the policies that made that possible.”
During the Biden administration, the gun industry took particular issue with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s so-called zero tolerance policy or “enhanced regulatory enforcement,” which Trump ordered reviewed. Under the policy, the ATF sought to revoke the licenses of gun dealers that committed serious regulatory violations, like selling guns without background checks or falsifying records. The change led to record numbers of revocations, but the policy was relaxed in 2024 after a court challenge.
The review will also include the Biden administration’s crackdown on “ghost guns,” untraceable firearms that can be assembled at home from kits purchased without background checks. In the years before the rule, ghost guns showed up at crime scenes in surging numbers and had become a serious public safety threat. The administration’s rule required that most ghost gun kits to be serialized — so law enforcement could trace them if they were used in crimes. It also made their sale subject to background checks.
In 2024, the Justice Department took steps to close the so-called gun show loophole, which allowed some gun sellers to avoid federal licensing requirements and sell guns without conducting background checks. That regulation will also be under review, according to Trump’s executive order.
While most of Biden’s policies have taken effect, lawsuits against them are ongoing. In his executive order, Trump directed the attorney general to also review the Justice Department’s decision to defend those regulations, as well as all other gun-related litigation in which the government is involved. From age limits on firearm sales to the ban on gun possession by people convicted of felonies, federal gun laws have been under constant threat in the courts since a 2022 Supreme Court decision dramatically expanded gun rights.
If the Justice Department declines to defend the current federal laws in court, it would significantly raise the chances of them being ruled unconstitutional.
Trump has also tasked the attorney general with combing through the reports, publications, and documents of the now-defunct White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Biden established the office in 2023, fulfilling a longtime goal of gun violence prevention groups. The office worked to coordinate a government-wide, public health approach to gun violence prevention, but it was panned by gun rights groups as an anti-gun political move.
Former U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, a shooting survivor and the founder of the gun reform group Giffords, said in a statement that a reversal of Biden’s policies would harm public safety.
“The president’s priority should be to build on the lifesaving progress made over the last four years,” she said, “not boost profits for gun company CEOs.”
