“[Pam Bondi] is the most pro-2A AG in US history,” stated Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon on October 11. Three days later, the DOJ under Pam Bondi issued a briefing upholding the restrictions on suppressors, leaving the Second Amendment community wondering whether the DOJ is playing a crafty game or if there is a massive communications gap between leadership and rank-and-file.
Ms. Dhillon’s defense of the Bondi-led DOJ came on the heels of a major gun rights group calling for Ms. Bondi’s firing over a pattern of missteps on 2A issues. Ms. Dhillon has been widely lauded for her unwavering, pro-Second Amendment stance, while the Bondi-DOJ at large continues to take actions that garner criticism, many of which we’ve documented here.
The DOJ briefing on October 14 represents the government’s opposition to the petition for rehearing United States v. Peterson en banc. It is signed by Michael M. Simpson, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The briefing, which is adamantly not pro-Second Amendment, has caused significant backlash within the community with its clear departure from Ms. Dhillon’s assertion. The case deals with whether suppressors are “arms” under the Second Amendment and the constitutionality of their regulation under the National Firearms Act.
The DOJ writes, “The panel correctly held that the NFA’s modest restrictions on suppressor possession do not violate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”
The government’s brief is in response to Mr. Peterson’s challenge to the district court’s finding that the “…NFA’s shall-issue licensing regime is presumptively constitutional…”
The DOJ moves even further in defense of suppressor regulation by stating:
The NFA regulation at issue does not target ordinary firearms such as handguns but only nonessential firearm accessories that are uniquely adaptable to criminal misuse. Law-abiding citizens remain free to possess suppressors so long as they register them.
This incredible statement, which benchmarks the official position of the DOJ, puts the rights of the vast majority of law-abiding citizens behind the concerns over rare criminal activity, something even the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged when it wrote:
…in the ten-year period between 1995 and 2004, one researcher found “only two federal cases where a silencer was used in a murder.”
Despite Ms. Dhillon’s argument to the contrary, this recent filing puts the Bondi Justice Department squarely at odds with the Second Amendment, embracing “modest restrictions” and calling suppressors “nonessential firearm accessories” – positions that are exactly those of the previous administration, and thus impossible to reconcile with the “most pro-2A AG in U.S. history.”
