This week, we’re looking ahead at the next four years of gun policy.
With Donald Trump coming back into office having already promised to fire the current ATF director, it’s an open question of what he might do with the agency. That’s why we have George Mason University Professor Robert Leider back on the show to hear his view of what moves gun-rights activists should pursue. Leider has studied the administrative side of gun policy.
He argues it would be more effective for activists to push for a competent ATF leader to institute pro-gun reforms than to try to cripple the organization. He noted it’s very unlikely legislation to disband the ATF or to repeal the underlying laws it enforces could pass Congress. He said the ATF’s responsibilities could be moved to another federal law enforcement agency, like the FBI, but argued they could upset activists just as much, if not more.
Leider believes Trump would be better off appointing a new director who understands how the agency operates. He said there are a lot of ways to affect federal gun policy without changing the underlying laws. That’s because federal law specifically provides the agency with a lot of leeway on enforcement.
You can listen to the show on your favorite podcasting app or by clicking here. Video of the episode is available on our YouTube channel. An auto-generated transcript is here. Reload Members get access on Sunday, as always. Everyone else can listen on Monday.
Plus, Contributing Writer Jake Fogleman and I break down what we can glean about the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s assassin based on surveillance footage of his gun. We also cover President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter and what that means for Second Amendment challenges related to his gun crimes. We wrap up by discussing the trend of Trump’s law enforcement cabinet picks having a history of supporting red flag laws, the US House of Representatives’ new legal brief in Smith and Wesson’s upcoming Supreme Court case, and what to make of new reports that Trump’s relationship with the NRA has soured.
