Make this make sense.
A guy with enough firepower to take out a small battalion storms an event, targeting the President of the United States, and the first thing the Justice Department does is enact a slew of changes that roll back laws regulating guns in America.
“Four days after the nation watched gunfire break out at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the Trump administration’s answer is to gut commonsense gun safety laws and sabotage the only federal agency dedicated to keeping guns out of criminal hands,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group, said in a statement last week.
The new Justice Department measures were signed shortly after Robert Cekada, a longtime law enforcement officer, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to lead the ATF, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws.
Gun rights groups argued that former President Joseph Biden went too far in 2024 when he closed the “gun show loophole” with the background check requirement.
They said Biden’s rule violated the Second Amendment, and that Biden didn’t have the authority to implement it.
The Justice Department agrees.
“For too long, regulations were written without any real understanding of how firearms businesses operate, how lawful gun owners handle their firearms, or what truly improves public safety,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
It turns out that Cole Allen, the alleged correspondents’ dinner shooter, was a “lawful gun owner.”
Does that make you feel better or worse?
That’s not to say that a background check would have flagged Allen as a potential presidential assassin.
But background checks would keep more of them from slipping through the cracks.
In fact, since 1994, background checks have blocked more than 5 million gun sales to people who could not legally own guns, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
Equally senseless is an Amtrak proposal that would allow people to store guns in lockboxes on most of its trains.
The railroad has been considering the idea since early this year, after Trump administration officials pressured executives to ease restrictions on transporting weapons, according to the Associated Press.
Allen rode Amtrak from California to the nation’s capital, presumably because it was easier to transport his weapons across state lines on a train than it would have been on an airplane.
You would think that after being turned into an accomplice, the railway would want to reconsider its lockbox idea. In the meantime, it does make you wonder a little about the passenger sitting across from you in the quiet car.
In a strange and maniacally violent way, Allen did the Secret Service a favor by exposing security flaws not only in the rail system but in hotels where high-profile events are staged.
Allen, the self-described “Friendly Federal Assassin,” had no more trouble checking into the Washington Hilton with his stockpile of weapons than a guy selling eyeglass frames would at an optometrists’ convention.
He even took a selfie in his room with his guns.
What will the Justice Department do next? Urge hotels to provide complimentary weapons storage for its Rewards Club member guests?
Authorities rightly repaid the favor by charging Allen with attempting to assassinate the President of the United States, and transporting and discharging a firearm.
But by rolling back the gun control laws, they are also rewarding Allen by making it easier for the next would-be assassin — someone who won’t be as “friendly.”