Donald Trump’s return to Washington is imminent, and gun safety groups are on high alert. He once described himself as “gun owners’ best friend in the White House.”
Emma Brown, executive director of gun safety organization Giffords, initially reacted to the news of Trump’s election victory with defiance rather than disappointment.
“If you step back and look at the history of this issue over the decades, it’s clear that we’ve been through a lot of ups and downs,” Brown said. “The first thought in my head (when Trump won) was, ‘We’re ready for this.'”
As President Trump returns for a second term, gun safety groups are allowing him to spend much of the next four years defending his country at the federal level. But despite the disappointment of Kamala Harris’ loss, supporters remain determined and cautiously optimistic about what Trump can accomplish during his term as president through state-level and corporate responsibility measures. expressed.
“We’ve been to this rodeo before,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “But we have a strategy for 2016, and I think in some ways we’re in a much better place than we were in 2016.”
When President Trump first entered the White House in 2017, the National Rifle Association (NRA) was at the height of its power. The gun rights group spent more than $30 million supporting Trump’s 2016 campaign, making it the largest outside donor to Trump’s campaign. After being sworn into office, Trump frequently consulted with the group’s then-CEO Wayne LaPierre to discuss gun control. In the wake of two mass shootings in Texas and Ohio in 2019, President Trump expressed support for expanding background checks for gun purchases, but backtracked after a phone call with LaPierre.
But since President Trump left office, the NRA’s power has declined dramatically. Mr. LaPierre resigned as CEO earlier this year just before the start of a civil trial investigating allegations that the longtime leader used NRA funds as a “personal piggy bank.” Legal troubles, financial mismanagement, and declining confidence in the NRA leadership decimated the organization’s resources. The group spent just $4 million supporting the Trump campaign in 2024, and NRA executives recently told members that the president-elect has “lost faith” in the group.
As the NRA declined, gun safety advocacy made significant strides at the federal and state levels. In 2022, Biden signed the bipartisan Safe Communities Act (BSCA) into law, marking the first major federal gun safety bill in nearly 30 years. The bill, which would expand background checks for the youngest gun buyers and encourage states to pass red flag laws, received unanimous support from Democrats and the support of 15 Republican senators.
“I’m not trying to be Polian-esque about this, but it’s a different ball game,” Feinblatt said. “Democrats are now completely resolute on the issue of gun safety. Our grassroots army has grown significantly over the past eight years and is nearly three times the size of the NRA. .”
Indeed, President Trump may roll back some of the gains of the gun safety movement during his second term. Biden is almost certain to shut down the Office to Prevent Gun Violence, the first cross-government initiative he launched. President Trump could nominate a more gun-friendly official to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or leave the director’s post vacant, as has been common in past administrations. You can do it too. President Trump may have the opportunity to nominate more justices to the Supreme Court, where conservatives have already proven in recent years to be very friendly to gun rights.
However, more significant measures, including the potential repeal of BSCA, may prove out of reach. In late November, the three Republican senators who supported the law’s passage (John Cornyn of Texas, Susan Collins of Maine, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina) told Newsweek sent an early signal about their position by writing an editorial praising their accomplishments. Regarding its abolition.
“The political calculus is changing, and I think it’s being recognized,” Feinblatt said. “And that’s why (then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch) McConnell voted for a conference vote on BSCA in 2022. With the midterm elections right around the corner, and right after the (mass shootings) in Uvalde and Buffalo, That just happened and he realized it wasn’t going to happen. Be politically smart to be the party that has resisted everything. ”
Still, with additional federal legislation unlikely over the next four years, gun safety groups plan to pay more attention to states that already offer ample opportunity for change. Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, states have passed more than 700 gun safety laws, with 88 enacted this year alone, Giffords said. The hurdles gun safety advocates face at the state level may be lower, given that Democrats largely maintained support in state legislatures this year despite losses in federal elections.
“We hope to build on that progress in 2025, rather than lose it,” Brown said. “We see the state as a testing ground for a variety of methods for some of the most innovative solutions to this problem.”
Some gun safety advocates are trying to push their agenda beyond federal and state governments. The group Guns Down America has launched a “Business Must Act” campaign calling on companies to ban openly carrying firearms in stores and use financial capital to support policy change. The campaign includes a scorecard where supporters can see how each company ranks in terms of gun safety.
“We think this is a shining moment for Guns Down America, because given the policy-making process at the federal level, no one can expect that in the next two to four years. And…the problem won’t go away on its own,” said Hudson Muñoz, the group’s executive director.
The group’s efforts have been successful in the past. After the 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, thousands of Guns Down America supporters call for a ban on open storage in Guns Down America stores and an end to gun sales. participated in the call. A month after the campaign began, Walmart announced it would suspend the sale of handguns and certain types of ammunition and ban the open carrying of firearms in its stores.
“We see corporate accountability, currently being invoked by the ‘Businesses Must Act’ campaign, as a place where we can build on the progress that has taken place over the past four years,” Muñoz said. he said. “It’s time for us to get creative.”
The determination of gun safety advocates is perhaps not surprising, given that many are accustomed to adversity. Giffords was founded by former Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after being shot in the head during an event with constituents in 2011. After the shooting, Giffords had to relearn how to walk, write, and speak. He is now one of the most prominent leaders of the gun safety movement.
The day after the election, Giffords participated in a conference call with all of the organization’s members, and she gave them simple instructions, Brown said.
“We are guided by women who have survived unsurvivable conditions, who have faced the most extreme conditions and not blinked an eye,” Brown said. “Now is the time for courage, fortitude, and the pursuit of unlikely allies.”
