Trump Pulls Rank on DOJ in Major Guns Rights Fight

Handgun with bullets on an American flag — Photo: Moab Republic / Shutterstock

Trump ordered a government-wide rethink on gun rights—and the Justice Department is now acting on it.

Story Highlights

Executive Order 14206 told the Attorney General to review recent rules and protect Second Amendment rights.
The Justice Department launched a formal process to restore federal firearm rights for eligible people.
Federal lawyers sued San Jose over a nearly $1,600 carry-permit fee they call unconstitutional.
The Civil Rights Division tied this enforcement to the new Second Amendment Section and the order.

Trump’s order set the policy, and DOJ moved

President Trump signed Executive Order 14206 in February 2025. It told the Attorney General to examine federal orders, rules, and guidance that could burden Second Amendment rights and to propose concrete steps to protect those rights. The order singled out actions by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives from 2021 through 2025 for review. That directive made clear the White House expected results, not memos—and the department has begun to deliver.

In August 2026, the Justice Department said it finalized a regulation and opened a process that lets eligible people who are barred from firearms apply to restore their federal rights. The announcement described a working system, not a talking point. It referenced a rule, an application track, and a plan to handle cases. That matters because the federal relief pathway under federal law had been dormant for years. Flipping the switch required both legal authority and clear priorities.

A new enforcement front: fees that price out rights

The department then filed suit against San Jose, California, over a carry permit that costs almost $1,600. Federal lawyers argue the city’s price tag places an unconstitutional burden on an ordinary resident’s right to carry a firearm. The Civil Rights Division said its Second Amendment Section will enforce both the Constitution and Executive Order 14206 in this space. The message is simple: government cannot turn a right into a luxury good by using “exorbitant” fees as a gate.

The theory lines up with the Supreme Court’s framework after the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision. The Court rejected interest-balancing and focused on text and history. It also warned that even “shall-issue” systems can be unconstitutional if they use delays or excessive fees to deny regular people their rights. That terrain is exactly where the San Jose case sits. The department is testing how far cities can push costs before the Constitution says stop.

What changed inside DOJ—and what comes next

The new restoration process signals a shift from rhetoric to operation. The department says an actual application route exists for people who can meet the law’s standards. That suggests staff, procedures, and a scoreboard will follow. The San Jose lawsuit adds a litigation arm that targets policies designed to deter lawful carry through cost. Taken together, this is a combined administrative-and-enforcement push that reflects the President’s order and a post-Bruen legal map.

Critics on the left frame these moves as rollbacks of “gun safety” and warn about loopholes. A group of senators pressed the department to fight harder for older federal limits and called those laws foundational to reducing violence. Those arguments lean on policy preferences more than on the new historical test courts now apply. Under the Constitution, rights are not pay-to-play. When a fee dwarfs the cost of the arm itself, common sense and the case law cut the same way.

The open files and the scoreboard to watch

Two gaps remain. The internal plan the order required has not been released in this record, even as public actions move ahead. And the San Jose case is at the pleading stage; courts still must rule on the merits. Those are process questions, not core doubts about what happened. The policy through-line is clear: review the past four years of gun rules, restore lawful rights under federal law, and challenge local tactics that drain a right through a bill.