Ben Sanderson of Gun Owners of America (GOA) says the Second Amendment community is living a paradox: President Trump issued what Sanderson calls the first truly pro-2A executive order in history – directing DOJ to abolish and overturn gun control where possible – yet parts of the Department of Justice are, in his telling, cutting against that mandate.
In a new Minuteman Moment episode, Sanderson walks through a ledger of wins and setbacks and argues that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s DOJ is too often echoing Biden-era positions in court while the White House pushes in the opposite direction. His message to gun owners is blunt: celebrate the wins, but don’t ignore the friendly fire.
The Promise: Trump’s Executive Order and a 2A Task Force
As Sanderson summarizes it, the President signed a pro-2A executive order, stood up a dedicated Second Amendment task force, and told agencies to prune back regulatory overreach. He even plays a clip of President Trump pledging to “always listen to Gun Owners of America.” On paper, the direction is clear: protect the right to keep and bear arms, and align federal agencies accordingly. In other words, the theory of the case is solid. The friction, Sanderson says, starts in the trenches – inside DOJ and ATF.
The Good: Concrete Steps Gun Owners Asked For
To be fair, Sanderson credits a stack of meaningful actions. He notes that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s budget request eliminated CDC/NIH “firearm injury” grant lines that had become taxpayer-funded gun-control mills. He applauds a Treasury order aimed at stopping banks from discriminating against the firearms industry (a rebuke to Operation Choke Point-style de-banking).
He praises DOJ’s intervention in GOA’s Illinois “assault weapons” ban case and even plays Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon’s oral-argument line that the Second Amendment must not be relegated to “a second-class right.” He also points to DOJ’s civil-rights probe of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over CCW delays – exactly the kind of “offense” the movement has asked for.
More Wins Ben Sanderson Counts
Sanderson rattles off additional bright spots: DOJ declined to appeal the Fifth Circuit’s Reese decision (more on that below); the administration celebrated GOA-backed language to remove suppressors from the NFA; prosecutors dropped a Biden-era pistol-brace case; DOJ exited an anti-gun suit against the industry; rights restoration resumed for the first time in decades; “zero-tolerance” FFL revocations were halted; D.C. concealed-carry processing sped up; and the White House voiced support for national reciprocity. If the story ended here, the pitch would be: mission accomplished.
The Whiplash in Reese: A Win, Then a Retreat
But Sanderson says it didn’t end there. In Reese v. ATF, the Fifth Circuit unanimously struck down the federal ban on licensed dealers selling handguns to 18-to-20-year-old adults. DOJ let the cert clock run out – good. Then, on September 2, Sanderson says DOJ tried to limit the ruling’s reach to the named plaintiffs, arguing that everyone else (including members of the plaintiff groups, SAF and FPC) should still be subject to the prohibition. He quotes DOJ’s own stance that the law is “inconsistent with the Second Amendment,” then asks why DOJ would fight to keep enforcing it against other young adults. From Sanderson’s vantage, that undercuts both the President’s executive order and Supreme Court doctrine on representational standing.
My take: If you concede a law is unconstitutional under Bruen’s text-and-history test, carving out relief only for a handful of plaintiffs invites a thousand duplicative lawsuits and leaves millions in limbo. Whatever one thinks of the merits, that’s terrible policy hygiene.
The Suppressor Standoff: Peterson and the NFA
Sanderson also singles out the Fifth Circuit’s Peterson suppressor case. He says DOJ is defending the National Firearms Act’s suppressor regime while acknowledging suppressors fall within the Second Amendment’s protections – particularly bizarre, he argues, because ATF’s own data shows only a few dozen prosecutions a year among millions of lawfully registered cans. To illustrate the folly of regulating based on “it makes a gun more dangerous if misused,” Sanderson invokes Ninth Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke’s critique in Duncan v. Bonta: virtually any feature that improves lawful self-defense also improves a criminal’s misuse, and that’s not a constitutional line-drawing principle.
If DOJ ultimately supports removing suppressors from the NFA (as the White House has celebrated in principle), its litigation positions should be steering toward that destination, not away from it.
“Demo Gun” Prosecutions That Won’t Die
Another sore spot for Sanderson: DOJ continuing Biden-era prosecutions over “demonstration machine guns,” where FFLs and pro-2A sheriffs acquired post-’86 samples for law-enforcement demo/testing. He notes multiple courts have already tossed some of these cases as ATF theories crumbled, and asks why the department is still chasing the rest. It’s a fair question – especially for an administration that says it ended “zero-tolerance” excesses and wants to rebuild trust with the industry.
ATF’s Testing Saga and a Rogue Letter
Sanderson then spotlights ATF technician Eve Icebise’s vice-and-yank “test” to defeat a lawful pin-and-weld muzzle device – a Biden-era one-off that, in his telling, still hasn’t been repudiated. He adds that ATF refuses to withdraw a seemingly mistaken classification letter declaring a member’s prototype 80% handgun frame a “firearm” despite admitting the agency didn’t even know how it could be finished. For Sanderson, these are low-hanging fruit: easy cleanups that would signal the culture has changed.
Even if individual employees went off script before, leadership today owns whether those outliers are clearly reversed. Quiet fixes don’t cut it; policy reversals only count if they’re on paper and public.
NICS Monitoring: A Half Step That Isn’t Enough
GOA also hammered ATF’s NICS “monitoring” program – warrantless surveillance of otherwise lawful gun sales – until the bureau promised to confine it to “really bad guys” and require the director’s sign-off. Sanderson isn’t impressed. The NICS statute is meant for instantaneous transactions, not rolling surveillance. He argues the only real fix is closure, not narrowing, and warns that anything less courts a backdoor registry.
The Strategy Problem: Stall, Moot, or Double Down
Zooming out, Sanderson says DOJ litigation posture keeps breaking faith with the President’s order. He outlines three recurring tactics: (1) stall to avoid a pro-2A ruling, then let ATF rewrite around the edges; (2) declare cases “moot” because the rule isn’t being enforced (for now), denying a permanent injunction and inviting a future administration to revive it; or (3) defend Biden-era rules as perfectly lawful. He points to GOA’s “engaged in the business” and Michigan “Brady Alternative” cases and the two zero-tolerance suits as examples where DOJ’s positions could leave gun owners exposed the moment political winds shift.
If the goal is durable peace between the federal government and the Second Amendment, consent decrees and permanent injunctions are how you cement it. Temporary discretion is not rule of law.
What Sanderson Wants the White House to Do
Sanderson’s ask is direct: have the White House order DOJ and ATF to harmonize with the President’s 2A agenda, stop making anti-gun arguments in court, settle cases in ways that create enforceable, permanent protections, and “purge” holdover bureaucrats who keep implementing Biden-era scripts. He even gives viewers a phone number and urges calls to press for alignment. Whether you agree with his prescription, you can’t miss the diagnosis: the right hand and left hand aren’t clapping in rhythm.
Why This Matters Beyond Inside-Baseball
If Sanderson’s account is right, the collateral damage is tangible. Eighteen-to-twenty-year-old adults in most of the country still can’t buy handguns from FFLs, even as Reese says the Second Amendment covers them. FFLs live under the shadow of revived zero-tolerance or “engaged in the business” flip-flops. Home-defense owners who want hearing-safe suppressors remain trapped in 1934 paperwork purgatory. And every “mootness” play that dodges a merits ruling leaves the next administration free to reenact yesterday’s infringements.
A Course Correction Is Possible – If DOJ Takes It
Sanderson’s video is not a hit piece on the President; it’s a call to finish the job. He credits Trump’s executive order, the 2A task force, multiple high-impact policy moves, and strong courtroom moments from leaders like Harmeet Dhillon. But he also names the contradictions and urges the White House to stitch the policy to the practice. My view: that stitch matters. Wins like L.A. CCW enforcement and the Illinois AWB intervention prove DOJ can run the Bruen playbook when it wants to. The next step is consistency – locking in permanent, court-enforceable protections so the Second Amendment isn’t a pendulum.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
