The divide in the Bondi Department of Justice has never been clearer when it comes to Second Amendment issues, as demonstrated by yet another letter penned by 42 members of Congress expressing “serious concern” over the DOJ’s position in defending the National Firearms Act.
On December 18, 41 U.S. Senators and House Representatives joined Georgia’s Rep. Andrew Clyde in penning a letter to the Bondi Justice Department, the second such letter in two months, excoriating the DOJ’s position in defending what is arguably one of the single worst infringements on the Second Amendment in the last century:
In light of the Department’s recent filing opposing this interpretation, we must express our serious concern and disappointment that the Department of Justice has chosen to advance a theory that not only conflicts with Congress’s express intent but also disregards the constitutional structure upon which the NFA has rested since 1934.
The Bondi DOJ ignored the message from Congress on behalf of Americans in its November 10 letter when, just ten days later, it filed a brief defending the NFA tax in a massive lawsuit challenging the NFA, called Silencer Shop v. Bondi. As we reported, that brief was also chock-full of arguments for maintaining numerous gun control measures, positioning the DOJ in opposition to President Trump’s February executive order to protect the Second Amendment.
In its most recent letter, Congress lays out the argument for why the NFA’s registration requirements not only must be struck down, but cannot be defended:
Moreover, the NFA’s criminal provisions pertain exclusively to the failure to pay or register the payment of this tax with the ATF. Any reinterpretation of the NFA that allows registration to persist once taxation has been removed contradicts the statute’s text, its structure, and Supreme Court precedent.
This letter comes just as another western-style government in Australia is moving to expedite a national registry, execute a nation-wide firearms “buyback”, and severely limit firearms ownership. The letter from Congress addresses the constitutionality of such a registry here:
The Department’s recent filing disregards this reality and advances a theory that would effectively transform the NFA from a tax statute into an independent federal gun-registration regime – an outcome Congress has never authorized, has repeatedly rejected, and in fact expressly prohibited in the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.
Finally, the joint letter points out that the DOJ has precedent in refusing to defend flawed law, just as it did with Obamacare, admonishing, “It has exercised that authority before, and it must do so again here – this time in defense of Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”
The rift in the DOJ under Bondi has never been more evident through its legal posture on the NFA as juxtaposed against the actions of the Civil Rights Division / Second Amendment Section under Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. Every action taken under Ms. Dhillon’s leadership has been expressly in support of Second Amendment rights. We have extensively tracked the DOJ’s record on 2A issues here.
