Attorney General Pam Bondi has embarked on a frantic bid to win over gun rights advocates as her department faces mounting questions over its bungled handling of the Epstein files.
Proposed changes to regulations set by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a division of the Justice Department, would loosen restrictions on the private sale and shipping of guns, as well as changing purchase forms to feature applicants’ biological sex at birth, The Washington Post reports.
Officials had reportedly hoped to announce the changes in time for the National Shooting Sports Foundation trade show in Las Vegas, beginning Tuesday, where Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is billed to speak. But sources told the newspaper the plans are still being finalized.
President Donald Trump has made overtures to the gun rights movement by appointing prominent advocates to senior positions in his administration, as well as slashing the number of firearms inspectors at the ATF.
Bondi, however, reportedly remains a source of concern among advocates given her support for further gun control in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting in 2018, during her tenure as Florida attorney general.
The top prosecutor’s efforts to curry favor with Second Amendment campaigners comes as her department faces intense criticism over its handling of the Epstein files, with two congressmen asking a federal judge to intervene over “urgent and grave concerns” about the slow pace of the files’ release.
The Justice Department firmly blew a legally mandated deadline on Dec. 19 to publish remaining case files on the sex trafficking crimes perpetuated by Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, both former associates of Trump.
Since then, the department has released less than 1 percent of those documents, subject to significant redactions, and a second deadline was missed on Jan. 3 for the publication of a rationale behind the redactions.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the DoJ for comment on this story.
“The Biden Administration waged war against the Second Amendment, but that era has come to an end under Attorney General Bondi, who has led the Justice Department’s effort to protect the Second Amendment through litigation, civil rights enforcement, regulatory reform, and by ending abusive enforcement practices,” a spokesperson told The Washington Post.
“Whenever law-abiding gun owners’ constitutional rights are violated, the Trump Administration will fight back in defense of freedom and the Constitution,” they added.
