AG Bondi gets extended deadline to recommend killing gun control policies: DOJ

The deadline quietly passed on Attorney General Pam Bondi delivering a report to President Donald Trump on whether any leftover Biden administration policies infringe on Americans' right to bear arms. It came just days after Democratic leaders sent her a letter suggesting there is "plainly no need for any new plan of action."

Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 7 after making campaign promises to gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) that "no one will lay a finger on your firearms."

The president instructed Bondi to "examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies" and determine if any of them violate the Second Amendment.

"The Second Amendment is an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty. It has preserved the right of the American people to protect ourselves, our families, and our freedoms since the founding of our great Nation," Trump's executive order reads. "Because it is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed."

The 30-day mark for Bondi to report back to Trump through his domestic policy director would have been this past Sunday, March 9. On Thursday, a Department of Justice official confirmed to ABC News that the deadline had been extended to Sunday, March 16.

The White House did not respond to ABC News' inquiry about Bondi's pending report.

Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law, told ABC News the broadly written executive order "signals to me that this isn't a top priority" for the Trump administration.

“Obviously, if there were things that were on the administration's radar as possibly violating the Second Amendment or violating the rights of gun owners in some way, they could have started to roll those back right away and wouldn’t have needed to take this intermediate step of issuing a directive to the Attorney General to figure out what those were," Willinger said. "That suggests that there’s nothing out there that the administration viewed as so pressing that they have to get rid of it right away."

'Perfectly consistent with the 2nd Amendment'

After Trump signed the executive order, NRA Executive Vice President Doug Hamlin released a statement praising the president's move.

"Promises made to law-abiding gun owners are being kept by President Donald J. Trump," Hamlin said. "NRA members were instrumental, turning out in record numbers to secure his victory, and he is proving worthy of their votes, faith and confidence in his first days in office."

John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, also released a statement, saying, "After a long four years, law-abiding gun owners no longer have to worry about being the target of an anti-gun radical administration. NRA looks forward to the advances and restoration of our rights that will come from President Trump's respect for the Constitution."

Earlier this month, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Georgia, ranking member of the House subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, sent Bondi a letter.

"We are determined to protect our communities against lethal gun crime in a manner consistent with the Second Amendment," they wrote.

The letter said that if Bondi carried out her examination "objectively and in good faith" she'll find that actions taken by the previous administration to fight gun violence are "perfectly consistent with the Second Amendment."

"There is plainly no need for any new plan of action to, in the words of the executive order, 'protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans,'" the letter said.

In his executive order, Trump instructed Bondi that in addition to reviewing all presidential actions taken on gun control from January 2021 to January 2025, he wanted her to review rules about firearms and federal firearm licensing implemented by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

Trump specifically asked Bondi to review the ATF's "enhanced regulatory enforcement policy" -- also called the "zero tolerance policy" -- implemented in 2021 under Biden and former Attorney General Merrick Garland to identify federal firearms dealers who violate the 1968 Gun Control Act.

Under the policy, firearms dealers had their licenses revoked for willfully transferring firearms to prohibited people, failing to conduct the required background checks, falsifying records and failing to respond to a gun trace request. The policy prompted several lawsuits from gun dealers who argued their licenses were revoked over minor clerical errors.

Raskin and McBath claimed that in the three years since the policy was implemented, about 0.3% of the nation's roughly 130,000 federal gun dealers had their licenses revoked.

"Through this policy, ATF has enforced the Gun Control Act as passed by Congress and had revoked the licenses of a tiny fraction of gun dealers who willfully violated the law," Raskin and McBath said in their letter to Bondi. "The ATF's enhanced regulatory policy has not prevented a single American who may lawfully possess a firearm from exercising his or her Second Amendment rights."

The ATF reported that in fiscal year 2023, the agency found 1,531 violations after conducting 8,689 firearm compliance inspections. The inspections, according to the ATF, prompted 667 warning letters and 170 revocations.

"Law-abiding gun dealers remain in business throughout the country. In fact, there remain more gun dealers than there are locations of Starbucks, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King, Subway, and Chick-fil-A combined," Raskin and McBath said in their letter.

The Democratic lawmakers asked Bondi to respond to their letter by the end of the business day on Monday, explaining what standards she will use to determine if policies taken by the Biden administration violate the Second Amendment and how she will ensure her plan of action "does not increase the risk of violent crime, including gun deaths."

Majority of Americans favor stronger gun laws

A Pew Research Center poll released in July 2024 found that 61% of respondents agreed that it is too easy to legally obtain a gun and 58% favored stricter gun laws.

"We know that the vast majority of Americans -- including gun owners and Trump voters -- support basic safety laws that crack down on crime and keep all communities safe. These policies are in no way inconsistent with the Second Amendment," Kris Brown, president of the gun-safety advocacy group Brady United, said in a statement after Trump signed the executive order.

Brown noted that policies under Biden included expanding background checks for gun buyers and "cracking down on rogue gun traffickers."

"They must be continued if this President actually wants to achieve any of his campaign promises around reducing crime, cracking down on drug traffickers, and reducing the flow of trafficked weapons across the southern border," Brown said.

In the aftermath of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major piece of federal gun reform to clear both chambers in 30 years.

The law enhanced background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21 by giving authorities up to 10 business days to review the juvenile and mental health records of young gun purchasers, and made it unlawful for someone to purchase a gun for someone who would fail a background check. This legislation closed the so-called "boyfriend loophole" preventing individuals convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing a gun.

The law included $750 million to help states implement "red flag" laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, as well as other violence prevention programs. It also provided funding for a variety of programs aimed at shoring up the nation's mental health apparatus and securing schools.

Willinger told ABC News that "short of asking Congress to appeal it," there is little the Trump administration can do about the law.

"It’s possible that the administration could do stuff to hold up that money," Willinger said. "I don’t know what wiggle room they have to do that."

Editor's note: An earlier version of the story indicated that the deadline had passed. A Department of Justice official informed ABC News of the extension after it was published after multiple attempts to get comment.