DOJ silence in major gun cases tests Second Amendment advocates’ trust in Trump

Trump's Justice Department has gone silent on two major Second Amendment cases—and that silence is deafening to gun rights groups who expected a reliably friendly administration. In June 2024, a federal judge in Texas struck down the Biden administration's rule requiring serial numbers on untraceable firearms manufactured at home. Three weeks later, another Texas court blocked the ATF's redefinition of what constitutes a regulated "firearm" under federal law. Both rulings should have been celebrations for Second Amendment advocates. Instead, the Trump DOJ—which hasn't explicitly stated its position—appears to be taking its time deciding whether to appeal, leaving gun rights organizations in a state of public frustration that exposes a fracture between Trump appointees and their base.

The backdrop here matters. In December 2022, the Biden administration finalized its "ghost gun" rule, expanding the definition of federally regulated firearms to include partially completed receivers and frames sold as kits. The ATF also required manufacturers to serialize these parts and conduct background checks—effectively treating the parts as finished firearms. Federal Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth dismantled that rule, finding the ATF had overstepped its authority under the Pittman-Robertson Act. Days later, Judge David Counts invalidated the ATF's 2021 definition of "firearm" itself, arguing the agency had rewritten the law rather than interpreted it. These weren't narrow technical rulings; they were wholesale rejections of regulatory architecture the Biden administration had fought to build.

What's at stake is whether the Trump administration will actually defend Second Amendment victories in court or let them wither through prosecutorial abandonment. If DOJ appeals and wins those appeals, the Biden rules could be reinstated. If it doesn't appeal, the precedent stands—but gun rights groups need explicit commitment, not ambiguity. Groups like the Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation spent years litigating these cases. They're now publicly asking: Does Trump's DOJ actually believe in these wins, or is the administration hedging its bets for political reasons? The silence suggests the latter, which erodes the transactional loyalty gun advocates believed they'd purchased with their 2020 and 2024 votes.

The parallel worth noting is the Trump administration's first term, when the DOJ similarly disappointed gun rights advocates by not fully backing litigation challenges to state assault weapons bans and magazine restrictions. Trump eventually signed the bumpstock ban in 2019—a decision that still stings with the base. What gun advocates are seeing now feels familiar: a Republican administration that won their votes but governs with its own priorities, not theirs. The difference is that this time, the victories are already in hand. The question is whether the DOJ will actively defend them or let them die on appeal.

The conservative read is straightforward and justified: this is a test of whether Trump means what he said about defending the Second Amendment or whether it's just campaign rhetoric. If DOJ appeals and loses, the Biden rules come back. If DOJ doesn't appeal, the silence itself becomes a form of betrayal—the administration gets credit for "not fighting gun rights" while actually doing nothing to cement the wins. Either way, gun advocates are being asked to trust the same institution that has historically used the ATF as a battering ram against their rights. The fact that they're publicly complaining now, before Trump's first 100 days are up, suggests that goodwill is already burning.

Watch for the formal notice of appeal deadline, which typically runs 60 days from the district court's final order. If DOJ files an appeal brief in the next six weeks without a clear statement that it supports the rulings, gun rights groups will escalate their public pressure. The real test comes in the appellate arguments themselves—whether DOJ is fighting to defend O'Connor and Counts' reasoning or half-heartedly defending Biden-era positions that the administration claims it inherited. That's when we'll know whether Trump's DOJ is actually different from Biden's, or whether it's just quieter about the same institutional priorities.