I came back from the 2026 NRA convention with a clearer read on where the Trump DOJ is headed on the Second Amendment, and on balance the news is good. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, ATF Chief Counsel Robert Leider, and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the Civil Rights Division, all spoke, and what they said — combined with conversations with people who know the building — confirms most of what I have been arguing here.
Why I am cautiously optimistic about the post-Bondi DOJ
Blanche, who replaced Pam Bondi after President Trump removed her in early April, used the phrase “rogue states” when talking about the Second Amendment. That word matters. It signals DOJ understands its target is state and local infringement, not federal statutes. Tom Gresham of Gun Talk reported on X that Blanche told him the DOJ has “big, big” announcements coming, that ATF and DOJ should be “going after criminals, not gun dealers,” and that “a change is in the wind.” I believe him — not on faith, but because the institutional incentives line up with what he is saying.
Suing states, not the federal government
Look at where the Civil Rights Division is pointing its guns. In the Seventh Circuit, AAG Dhillon argued Barnett v. Raoul against Illinois’s semiautomatic-rifle ban. In the Third Circuit, DOJ filed an amicus brief in Cheeseman v. Platkin and ANJRPC v. Platkin against New Jersey’s AR-15 and magazine bans. DOJ has filed affirmative suits against the District of Columbia over its rifle ban and against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over slow-walked concealed-carry licensing. Every target is a state or local government.
That is not an accident. Heller knocked out the D.C. handgun ban. McDonald knocked out Chicago’s. Bruen knocked out New York’s “may-issue” carry regime. Caetano vacated Massachusetts’s stun-gun ban. I expect Wolford v. Lopez, the Hawaii “vampire rule” case argued in January and now pending, to fall in the same line — that is my prediction, not a result on the books. Compare the federal cases: Miller upheld parts of the National Firearms Act; Rahimi upheld 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8). The Civil Rights Division is fishing where the fish are.
Article II, take care
There is a deeper structural reason. With one notable exception, DOJ is not a plaintiff law firm — it is a defense law firm with one client: the federal government. Article II charges the President with taking care that the laws be faithfully executed. When a federal statute is challenged, the institutional presumption is that DOJ defends it.
The exception is the Office of Legal Counsel, which writes binding opinions for the President and the AG. When OLC concludes a federal practice is unconstitutional, DOJ posture changes — as it did with the January 2026 opinion concluding that 18 U.S.C. § 1715, the federal ban on mailing handguns through the U.S. Postal Service, violates the Second Amendment. Absent an OLC opinion of that kind, expect DOJ to keep defending federal gun laws.
The deep-state staffing problem
The Civil Rights Division is the one part of DOJ that functions as a plaintiff shop. Reporting confirms that roughly 75 percent of the lawyers there left rather than serve under Dhillon and President Trump. Imagine running a hundred-seat restaurant where seventy-five of the staff are quietly trying to over-salt the food. That is the environment Dhillon, Blanche, and Leider are working in, and it explains why the rebuild takes time.
The Hemani problem and the Solicitor General’s office
Which brings me to United States v. Hemani, argued March 2, 2026. The case puts § 922(g)(3) — firearm possession by an unlawful drug user — in front of a Court that defers to federal statutes more than state ones, on a fact pattern with a deeply unsympathetic respondent. Why push this up at all? My suspicion — and this is suspicion, not confirmed fact, and I could be wrong — is that the pressure came out of the Solicitor General’s office of D. John Sauer, with Principal Deputy SG Sarah M. Harris, who argued the case, on the front lines. The argument they would make is that U.S. Attorney’s offices use § 922(g) every day to leverage plea deals. My response: if a defendant is genuinely a drug trafficker, try the case and prove it. Do not bake bad Second Amendment precedent into a workhorse plea-bargain statute.
Why Blanche outranks the SG
Here is the good news. On the DOJ org chart, the Acting Attorney General sits above the Solicitor General. Blanche can tell Sauer no. He can tell Harris no. If the SG’s office tries to push another fact-pattern case that risks bad Second Amendment precedent, the AG has the authority to step in. Bondi, in my judgment, lacked the fortitude. Blanche may. I hope he does.
The ATF deregulation pipeline
The reason we have not yet seen the wave of ATF rulemaking rolling back Biden-era regulations is that ATF still has no Senate-confirmed director. Robert Cekada had a strong hearing and was voted out of Judiciary, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune has not brought him to the floor. Until that vote happens, the deregulatory water is dammed up. When it breaks, expect a flood.
Wait and see
That is where I land: cautiously optimistic, eyes open about the structural limits, prepared to be wrong on Hemani. The history of the future has yet to be written.
This article is based on analysis by Mark W. Smith on The Four Boxes Diner. Watch the original video. This does not constitute legal advice.