Anytime a politician begins a sentence with “I am an advocate for the Second Amendment, but…” gun-rights advocates tend to turn a skeptical eye in their direction. That’s what Pam Bondi did during her confirmation hearing, but the context surrounding those comments may be a worse sign for the gun-rights movement as the president it backed is set to take office.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s Attorney General pick described herself as a Second Amendment advocate who would “enforce the laws of the land.” When asked about her support for new gun restrictions during her time as Florida’s AG, including backing age restrictions and helping craft a “red flag” law, she pointed to her experience responding to mass shootings as formative for her gun views. While she declined to endorse any particular gun-control proposal, her explanation of her beliefs sounded a lot more like what you’d expect from a modern Democrat than the next Republican AG.

More troubling for gun-rights activists than Bondi’s comments, though, may be who they were in response to. Instead of a grilling by skeptical Republicans looking for gun-rights assurances in exchange for their votes, the questions on Bondi’s gun record were posed by a California Democrat hoping she’d commit to publicly backing the policies she supported but on a national level.

Not a single Republican Senator asked Bondi about her background on guns or how she might handle the issue as AG.

That’s not because nobody wanted them to ask her those questions. Several prominent gun-rights groups have publicly criticized Bondi’s background since Trump announced her nomination.

Gun Owners of America declared Bondi had a “Second Amendment problem” ahead of the hearing. It cited her backing of a “red flag,” bump stock ban, and ban on commercial sales of guns to 18-to-20-year-olds as evidence. It said her record was “a mixed bag,” which is “simply not good enough.”

“That’s why it’s so important that we make sure that the Trump Department of Justice recognizes that gun ownership is a God-given right guaranteed by the Constitution and that gun owners are public safety partners for law enforcement—not a subset of Americans to be policed,” the group said in a message to supporters. “To do that, we need YOU to contact your Senators and urge them to demand answers from Pam Bondi so gun owners know exactly where she stands on the Second Amendment.”

The National Association for Gun Rights put out nine specific questions it wanted Republicans to ask her. None of the Republicans bothered.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has remained silent on Bondi. It didn’t say anything before or after her confirmation hearing. The group has been in a state of flux as its legal troubles wind down and new leadership takes hold, and it hasn’t been very active in the lead-up to the new Trump Administration.

As Bondi’s hearing wrapped up without any pushback on her gun record, it became clear she’d sail through her confirmation vote. Even Democrats admitted as much. That’s a bad sign for the political potency of the gun-rights movement.

Bondi’s tenure as AG could have a substantial impact on gun policy. During her time as Florida AG, she consistently butted heads with gun-rights advocates, including the NRA, over her avid defense of the state’s gun restrictions. She could do the same in a national role.

She’ll also have a significant say over who becomes the next ATF Director. That’s a position gun-rights advocates want to see filled by somebody who pushes the agency away from its recent focus on strictly regulating the gun industry or outlawing certain firearms and accessories. Bondi may not have exactly the same priorities.

Undoubtedly, the ATF is likely to be less aggressive than under President Joe Biden and Director Steven Dettelbach. However, The New York Times reported last month that Bondi is pushing Trump to appoint “a relatively nonideological replacement for Mr. Dettelbach to fulfill the campaign’s law-and-order promises.” Whether Trump will listen to her, use the pick to reward a loyal supporter, or do something else entirely is anyone’s guess, but Bondi probably has a better shot than most at convincing him if she does become AG.

That Bondi’s background on firearms hasn’t sunk her nomination shouldn’t come as a major surprise either. After all, Trump has supported many of the same policies as Bondi. In fact, the comments where she most clearly backed temporary gun confiscation for those deemed a threat to themselves or others came during a post-Parkland meeting at the White House with Trump.

“I’ve had my solicitor general on it for three days now working on it,” she told Trump in 2018. “We’ve been rewriting it, and we’re going to bring in something called the gun violence restraining order.”

“Good,” Trump responded.

Trump took Bondi’s idea to heart and repeated her complaints about how long it takes to confiscate guns from people suspected of being dangerous under state law a few days later.

“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a later meeting with lawmakers.

“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” he followed up.

Like Bondi, Trump also supported a bump stock ban during his first term. He ordered the ATF to unilaterally reclassify the devices as subject to the National Firearms Act, effectively outlawing them using a mechanism President Biden copied numerous times over the past four years.

None of this has hurt Trump politically. The gun voters have mostly stuck by his side, even during a primary that featured candidates with stronger gun records. While things like the bump stock ban or public comments flirting with “red flag” proposals anger some of the most engaged gun activists, there’s little evidence they sway the average gun voter–especially those who aren’t directly impacted by them.

Plus, when he was pitted against Kamala Harris, whose record even includes support for handgun confiscation, in the general election, gun-rights activists largely came home to Trump anyway.

Trump did make some efforts to court gun voters during the campaign, including speaking at two NRA events. But his promises were fairly mild, mainly consisting of rolling back Biden-era ATF rules, and the GOP stripped nearly all of the gun policy promises from its 2024 platform.

The gun-rights movement is more fractured than it was during Trump’s first term. The NRA is only now emerging from a six-year scandal, and its rivals have grown but not nearly to the extent they’ve shrunk. The movement has lost nearly all purchase with the Democratic Party in a push-pull cycle that’s lasted decades. So, even though Republicans are now back in control, they can’t credibly threaten much more than the idea of gun voters sitting out future elections. That’s not nothing, but it’ll probably require more recent real-world examples than those currently on the books.

The current dynamic leaves Trump and the Republican Party writ large in a position where they can more easily take gun voters for granted. While the potential for new gun control under Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress is underestimated, it still isn’t the most likely negative outcome for gun activists. Instead, as Bondi’s confirmation non-fight shows, the gun-rights movement is likely to find itself among the lower rungs of the current GOP coalition’s priority list. If other concerns that strike closer to Trump’s heart are involved, concerns of gun-rights activists will probably take a back seat.

It’s difficult to predict what Trump might do in his second term. His first term provides some insight. He’ll probably appoint pro-gun judges. He’ll probably sign pro-gun legislation–if any actually makes it to his desk. He might also implement new gun restrictions through executive action or appoint an ATF director gun-rights advocates don’t like.

Gun-rights groups may accept that trade-off as worth it. Or they may be able to mount more effective influence campaigns against Trump Administration moves they don’t like down the line, as they did in getting Republican Senators to sink Trump’s ATF pick in his first term.

For now, though, Trump isn’t prioritizing gun rights in pre-Innaguratoin moves, and Republicans followed his lead during the AG confirmation hearing.