Authored by Aidan Johnston via Gun Owners of America,
In November 2024, gun owners elected a president who promised to restore the Second Amendment and ushered in the most pro-gun Congress in modern history.
Two years later, the results are not in dispute. No president in American history has done more to restore lost Second Amendment rights than Donald J. Trump. And no Congress has restored more Second Amendment rights than the 119th.
Just after taking office, President Trump signed Executive Order 14206, "Protecting Second Amendment Rights" - the first executive order in American history devoted specifically to restoring lost gun rights. President Trump ordered a wholesale review and repeal of every unconstitutional Biden-era gun control.
🚨UPDATE🚨
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) May 7, 2026
ATF just proposed a rule to eliminate Biden's Zero Tolerance Policy. It:
✅Appears to be a MAJOR VICTORY
✅Fulfills a campaign promise
✅Adopts a strong standard for "willfulness"
✅Prevents revocation for harmless & unintentional errors
Thank you @realDonaldTrump! https://t.co/Qr9AelqLv4 pic.twitter.com/TSDenedzoE
More recently, ATF proposed more than three dozen regulatory reforms, including reducing National Firearms Act burdens on law-abiding gun owners and their spouses, easing interstate travel protections for gun owners crossing state lines, allowing guns to be shipped straight to your door, and reducing the records currently kept in ATF's illegal gun registry for the first time since its creation in 1968. While Gun Owners of America provided constructive criticism to the Trump administration on several of the other proposed regulatory reforms, GOA is continuing to work with the Trump administration to improve the drafts before a final rules are enacted.
The Department of Justice also launched a new process to restore federal firearms rights to individuals who have been prohibited, reviving an authority Congress had defunded for more than three decades. And the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion declaring the bans on handgun sales to 18-to-20-year-olds, on interstate sales of handguns, and certain federal gun-free zones unconstitutional.
🚨BREAKING🚨 ⁰⁰DOJ’s @CivilRights Division asks the court for permission to defend the 2nd Amendment at oral arguments in our Illinois “assault weapon” & “high capacity” magazine lawsuit. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/8IDcyDzBJx
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) September 3, 2025
Thank you @RepBost for standing up against the injustice of the VA's Fiduciary rule!
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) May 19, 2026
The Second Amendment is not a second class right, and veterans are NOT second class citizens.
GOA is proud to have fought for 30 years on this issue to protect veterans and their 2A rights. https://t.co/JVwfCfdCrG pic.twitter.com/V5Mnx7Buqe
🚨UPDATE🚨@SecKennedy has asked Congress to eliminate gun control research at the CDC and NIH.
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 1, 2025
He rightly says this will “align investments with the Administration’s priorities” and “save taxpayer funds.” https://t.co/TKbFFe0Fdz pic.twitter.com/2FQkjeaEgs
The Department of War, under Secretary Pete Hegseth, issued a memorandum directing installation commanders to allow service members to carry privately owned firearms on base with a presumption of approval - ending what Hegseth called a de facto gun-free zone policy on military installations.
The Department of Treasury ended the weaponization of agencies like FinCEN that were targeting gun owners and eliminated the use of "reputational risk" to de-bank the firearm industry. And the Office of Comptroller of the Currency exposed nine of the largest banks in the United States for discriminating against the firearm industry, prompting major apologies and policy reversals.
The Department of Commerce reversed a Biden-era rule that would have restricted civilian firearms exports to thirty-six nations.
The Department of the Interior, under Executive Order 14429, is moving to reopen national monuments to hunting and protect traditional lead ammunition after President Biden tried to institute a backdoor lead ammunition ban.
And USPS initiated rulemakings to allow gun owners to carry firearms for self-defense in post offices and even ship handguns by mail, upending nearly a century of gun control in response to GOA lawsuits.
Since FY 2024, Congress has cut a total of 2 million from ATF's budget.
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) January 8, 2026
GOA will continue to fight until this tyrannical agency is completely DEFUNDED and ABOLISHED. https://t.co/8oiE1pofiD
Congress repealing the NFA tax is what made GOA's legal victory in Silencer Shop v. ATF possible, where a Trump judge held that NFA gun registration could no longer be enforced against GOA members for untaxed suppressors and short-barreled firearms. After our victory in district court, President Trump ordered the Department of Justice not to appeal. So on August 13, 2026, GOA members and Trump-endorsed candidates Brandon Herrera and Wesley Verdell completed the first suppressor transfers without registration, fingerprints, or Form 4s in 92 years. Under the leadership of Director Cekada, ATF expanded GOA's injunction to apply not just to GOA members but nationwide. A law that infringed on the rights of our fathers, our grandfathers, our great-grandfathers no longer applies to all Americans.
That's what winning looks like. Now consider the alternative.
If Kamala Harris had won in 2024, the "Zero Tolerance" policy would still be stripping licenses from small gun shops, and ATF's illegal registry would still be growing at a historic rate. The Department of Justice would still be fighting to regulate gun parts using the "Frame and Receiver" rule. A new "Pistol Brace" rule would have been issued to ban short-barreled rifles and shotguns again, after the old one was struck down on only procedural grounds. And ATF would still be targeting gun owners pursuant to the "Engaged in the Business" rule - as it did under Biden's ATF Director Dettelbach, when gun owner Brian Malinowski was killed in a pre-dawn raid on his own home.
Harris' campaign website also promised a so-called "assault weapons" ban, universal background checks, and red flag laws. The Democratic platform called for repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to bankrupt the gun industry. And Kamala would have vetoed any bill eliminating the NFA tax and signed any bill to restrict our God-given rights.
That is exactly what we face if we lose this November.
If Democrats take the House, the Senate, or both, there will be no future reconciliation bill to eliminate the remaining NFA taxes. There will be no pro-gun appropriations riders. Democrats have historically used the National Defense Authorization Act as a vehicle for red flag gun confiscation orders. We would face Congressional Review Act resolutions targeting every pro-gun rule the administration has issued.
And if a pro-gun Supreme Court justice - Alito, Thomas, or any other - leaves the bench, we will have lost the chance to confirm another originalist who believes that our Second Amendment rights shall not be infringed. The Supreme Court, which now has a majority of pro-gun and Trump-appointed justices, is set to hear Viramontes v. Cook County on December 2nd, deciding whether AR-15 bans are constitutional. If the Court strikes down the bans in California, Hawaii, New York, and elsewhere, anti-gun Democrats will use that as their excuse to pack the Supreme Court and overturn Heller, Bruen, and everything good that has followed.
The rights that we have been able to restore by working with President Trump and a pro-gun Congress over these past two years may not survive if anti-gunners are able to take control of Washington.
So remember: the Second Amendment is on the ballot. GOA urges every gun owner who cares about their right to keep and bear arms, and every gun activist who wants to help GOA continue restoring Second Amendment rights in Washington, D.C. over the next two years, to get out and vote this November.
Aidan Johnston is the Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America, a non-profit grassroots lobbying organization with over two million members nationwide.
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