Trump makes it easier for felons and abusers to get a gun

• Trump is making it easier for convicted criminals and abusers to get back their guns. Getting around a three decades long prohibition by Congress that blocks the ATF from allowing felons and domestic abusers from legally owning guns, Trump’s new rule will give the Department of Justice to allow criminals to own guns. 

Trump allows law-breaking gun sellers to stay in business and allows gun sellers to avoid background checks

• Trump, as reported by The Trace, “is ending its zero tolerance policy for lawbreaking gun dealers, rolling back a Biden-era crackdown that triggered the steepest increase in gun store license revocations in the agency’s history. The policy.,..instructed the ATF to revoke the license of any gun dealer found to have willfully committed any of five serious violations, including selling a gun without a background check or falsifying business records. The change led to an immediate spike in revocations, which climbed to record highs in fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

• Trump is gutting a rule on background checks that aimed at  closing the private sale loophole. The rule requires  frequent or profit-driven gun sellers to obtain a Federal Firearms License and conduct background checks. Trump administration is looking to weaken background checks and allow more sales without oversight. 

Trump slashes inspectors who keep guns away from criminals

• Trump is slashing the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals, gun traffickers, straw purchasers, and people with severe mental illness. His budget will eliminate 541 of the estimated 800 investigators responsible for determining whether federally licensed dealers are following federal law and regulations 

Trump Abolishes  the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.  

• Trump abolished  the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention the day after his inauguration.  This office, established under President Biden,  coordinated federal efforts to reduce gun violence,  similar to how FEMA coordinates disaster response. Its closure immediately siloed federal agencies’ responses to shootings and stripped the government of its first central hub for tackling gun violence.

Trump shuts down school gun violence prevention program he created after Parkland

• Trump shut down the very program he championed after  the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, which claimed 17 lives and injured 17 more. The Federal School Safety Clearinghouse provided accessible resources to help schools prevent future tragedies. The Clearinghouse was established by federal law in 2022 so Trump’s action is clearly illegal. 

Trump fires public health staff responsible for gun violence prevention

• Trump fired the scientists and public health researchers at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Department of Human & Health Services (HHS) staff who oversaw critical gun violence prevention programs.  Trump cut 10,000 staff at HHS including staff at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention,  a unit that studies and works to prevent gun deaths and injuries and  many at the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control which t collects data on shootings, suicides, and violent deaths.The CDC division that runs WISQARS — a database that includes gun deaths and injuries  was decimated  as at least 40 people in the division received termination notices. 

Trump cancels school mental health funding created in response to school shootings

• Trump cut $1 billion in federal grants for school-based mental health programs, which had been funded by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) of 2022, legislation   passed after school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which a teen gunman killed 19 elementary school students and two adults and injured 17 people. The money was earmarked to help schools hire counselors, psychologists, and other mental health professionals – crucial resources to support youth and potentially prevent violence and suicides. Republican and Democratic lawmakers had agreed that boosting mental health services in schools would improve student well-being and security.

Trump erases gun violence as a public health issue

• Trump removed  the U.S. Surgeon General declaration that gun violence a public health crisis, which was finally made in 2024, reversing a long-overdue federal acknowledgment of what public health leaders, including the American Medical Association, have recognized for years. By scrubbing this lifesaving guidance and sidelining the role of public health in addressing gun violence Trump once again chose to protect the gun industry over protecting our children and communities.

Trump greenlights more machine guns

• Trump stopped a legal case against force-reset-triggers, a device which turns an automatic rifle into a machine gun. Federal law prohibits civilians from owning machine guns — any weapon that shoots “automatically more than one shot…by a single function of the trigger” as well as any part “designed and intended” to convert firearms into machine guns — manufactured after May 19, 1986. This is why the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) first ordered Rare Breed Triggers to stop selling FRTs to customers back in July 2021. Trump now settled the legal challenge filed by the manufacturer by agreeing to allow the triggers. 

• Trump also said he would repeal and reassess a recent Biden rule that reclassified many pistol stabilizing braces as components of short-barreled rifles, making them subject to strict NFA registration, tax stamps, and background checks. The ATF also signaled its intent to decline defending the rule in court.

Big Bad Bill removes excise tax on silencers, shotguns 

• Trump’s Big Bad reconciliation bill  eliminated the federal excise tax of $200 on the transfer of suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and "any other weapons" (AOWs) regulated by the National Firearms Act.