THE KNOX REPORT: Project 2025, The Second Amendement Edition

With the election of President Trump and Republican majorities in the US House and Senate, a lot of people are asking the same question: “Now what?”  Budget and economic issues, as well as securing the border and cooling international hot spots are likely to take precedence over expanding the right to arms.  Nonetheless, there is much that President Trump and the new Republican majority can and should do as early as possible to protect and expand our Second Amendment rights.  Given the credible of genuine civil insurrection by the left – or worse, by hostile foreign actors who crossed the border illegally – expansion of gun rights is a key to domestic security. The battle starts with rolling back Biden’s executive orders and enforcement instructions to the bureaucrats in Washington and across the country.  The Biden executive orders were implemented unilaterally, and they can be unilaterally reversed by President Trump.

Common Sense Law Enforcement

At the top of the list is Joe Biden’s so-called “zero tolerance” policy regarding gun dealers.  No one supports arming gangbangers and drug dealers, but Biden’s destructive policy misses that target while focusing on innocent gun dealers who have made paperwork errors.  President Trump can, and should, stop that abusive policy on day one with the stroke of his pen.

Reform BATFE from the Top

As part of his effort to refocus the BATFE mission on preventing and solving crime, Mr. Trump must remove the BATFE Director Steve Dettelbach and top managers who have demonstrated their eagerness to restrict Americans’ rights and make criminals of the law-abiding.

Personally-Made Firearms Reform

Recent regulatory changes regarding personally-made firearms and kits need to be repealed, along with a revamping of the 4473 and dealer retention requirements.

Withdrawal from the UN Arms Trade Treaty

The ATT requires that countries destroy surplus arms and ammunition, rather than selling it – even to customers like the US civilian market, where our export laws are stricter than those mandated in the ATT.  This explains the disappearance of cheap, surplus ammo and parts kits. President Trump should again withdraw all US support and agreement with the UN Arms Trade Treaty and instruct his UN Ambassador to work on ways to disassemble that outrageous assault on the right to self-defense and self-determination, not only as it applies to us here in the US, but around the world.  While President Trump will almost certainly step away from that treaty once again, we need him to go further and, at a minimum, work toward exceptions in the treaty for sales to the US civilian market.

Disband the Office of Gun Violence Prevention

The President needs to disband all federal government offices and programs that focus on blaming guns and gun owners for criminal misuse of guns, such as the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.  Instead of focusing on the tools used by criminals, the focus must return to the criminals themselves.Those are some of the “easy” gun rights things President Trump could, and should, act on right away.  Other actions will require the support of Congress, and even though Republicans will have majorities in both houses, getting significant improvements pushed through won’t be a simple matter.  Passing good legislation out of the House should be very doable, but in the Senate, the bar remains at 60 votes to bring a bill to a final vote, and Republicans will have only 52 or 53 seats, including a couple that are not particularly solid on Second Amendment issues.  At the same time, the number of Democratic senators who have leaned toward support of the Second Amendment has declined.Getting anything of substance through the Senate will be difficult, if not impossible, but that’s no excuse for not trying.  A good bill that fails will force record votes that can be used against anti-rights senators in coming elections.

On the agenda: Federal Land Reform

All generally accessible federal lands should conform to state firearm regulations, just as was done with National Parks.  This would include wildlife refuges, national monuments, and all lands overseen by the TVA and Corps of Engineers.  This bill should also include provisions to open up more public lands to shooting and hunting and end all blanket bans on guns in federal buildings.  If a building, part of a building, or particular fenced area of federal land, can justifiably be designated as a “sensitive place,” only that specific portion should be restricted, and must have limited access and security in place in order to enforce restrictions.

National CCW Reciprocity and Expansion of “Safe Transit” Protections

Prior to passage of the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act, a traveler driving through East St. Louis on I-70 could be held in violation of that city’s handgun ban for a cased and unloaded pistol in the trunk.  Current law protects someone traveling through a restrictive state or municipality, as long as the “illegal” guns are “legal” where the person is coming from and going to, and they’re unloaded, locked in the trunk, and the traveler keeps moving straight through the state, only stopping briefly for gas, food, bathroom, etc. This was a huge improvement when my father proposed it back in 1979, but falls short in the real world.  We’ve seen problems with trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles that don’t have trunks or other acceptable “locking compartments,” and there have been multiple issues with the “legal at point of origin and destination” requirements, as well as many problems in what defines a “brief” stop. The revised version should do away with the “legal at destination” requirement altogether, and revise the “brief stops” language to a limited time-frame of a week or two for a visit.  Accessories such as ammunition, magazines, and anything else that some jurisdictions have decided are evil, should be added into the language, so a person can’t be prosecuted for having the “wrong” bullets or a magazine with “too much” capacity. This is where a form of federal CCW reciprocity could also be slipped in.

While the idea of national reciprocity – or better yet, Constitutional Carry – is very popular among gun voters, the concept runs into significant problems with the Constitution, as it violates the principles of federalism.  In short, the Constitution prohibits the federal government from handing down mandates to the states.  If the Supreme Court were to rule that state gun control laws are unconstitutional, that would settle these matters, but Congress can’t just declare that states must recognize other states carry licenses.  Such a law would very likely be struck down by the Supreme Court.  Ideally, states would enter compacts agreeing to recognize each other’s CCW’s, as they have done with Drivers Licenses, but that’s not going to happen.Adding expanded “safe travel” protections which include the requirement that CCW’s from a traveler’s home state be honored, could be justified under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.  Trying to mandate more than that would be doomed to failure. Any “safe travel” reform should also include a presumption of innocence clause to give extra protections to someone who just made an honest mistake.  No one should face felony charges for taking the wrong exit or erroneously misconstruing the scope of their CCW.

Post Office Gun Reform

End the arbitrary ban on firearms in and around post offices, and require the US Post Office to accept unloaded, disassembled firearms for shipment through the US Mail.

Actually “Fix NICS.”  

I don’t like NICS.  I think it’s a huge waste of money and resources, and it is rife with problems and constitutional issues.  There is zero chance of repealing or removing NICS though, so it makes sense to make it as simple, efficient, and fair as possible. Erroneous denials and delays must be addressed by removing “unresolved” arrest data once it’s been investigated and no conviction or other prohibiting resolution is found.  Restrictions on interstate firearm sales by licensed dealers when NICS is used, must also be repealed. One idea that friends have promoted is what they call the BIDS system, which would give gun dealers access to a database of “prohibited persons.”  That system would solve a lot of problems and save a lot of time and money, but there are privacy issues, and it is still a system that singles out gun buyers every time they seek to make a purchase. Another option that I’ve been talking about since NICS was first suggested, is the inclusion on drivers licenses of a code, such as a green “G” in the corner, indicating that a background check has been completed and the individual is cleared for firearm purchases.

The “Green G” system would include an automatic NICS check on every DL application unless the person making the application specifically opts out.  This would result in most people having the NICS check automatically done and the code added to their DL, but since people can opt-out and choose to have the code omitted from their license, the privacy rights of “prohibited persons” would not be violated.  The “G” would indicate that the person is “cleared,” but not having the “G” would not indicate that the person is necessarily a “bad guy,” just that they did not have their status verified. If a person were to become a “prohibited person,” the judge who made that determination would immediately remove the code with a hole punch and transmit the adjudication to NICS so any future license would not include the code unless the prohibition was removed. As long as the code is present on a person’s DL, any dealer or private citizen could legally transfer a firearm to that person without concern or delay. This NICS replacement could be incorporated into the current push to transition to “Travel ID’s” and would eventually result in a huge decline in the required staffing for the NICS system. Another provision that could be included in this bill would be the recognition of 18, 19, and 20-year-olds as adults who can legally purchase and possess firearms.

Reform ITAR

The International Trade in Arms Rule and other import/export laws are full of ambiguities and confusion, removing “open source” information and products from import/export restriction, and taking all firearm import/export authority away from the Department of State.

Repeal the Lautenberg Amendment  

If a crime justifies the permanent loss of an enumerated constitutional right, that crime should be a felony.  If it’s not a felony, it should not permanently abrogate rights.  Naturally the other side will say that we favor arming domestic abusers.  The proper response is that genuine abuse should not be plea-bargained to a misdemeanor.

Add “Mens Rea” Provisions to All Gun Laws

The object of gun control laws is supposed to be to reduce violent crime by keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals, not to serve as a “gotcha” against people trying to exercise their rights.  If the person was in violation of some gun law, but wasn’t hurting or enabling the hurting of anyone, and had no intention to commit any other crime, they should not be prosecuted as some sort of dangerous criminal.  A guy building and testing a silencer in his garage for his own amusement and education should not be treated more harshly than a rapist.

The NFA: It’s not going to be repealed by Congress, so let’s make some improvements:

Deregulate Silencers

Silencers should not be restricted under the NFA, nor should they be treated like firearms.  They are safety devices, not guns.  Legislation seeking to deregulate silencers should not start with the proposal to treat them like handguns.  That should be a reluctant fallback option, only resorted to if that’s the only way to get them removed from the NFA.

Remove Short Barreled Rifles and Short Barreled Shotguns from the NFA 

Treat them like any other rifle, shotgun, or handgun.  At the same time, remove distinctions and definitions that treat rifles, shotguns, and handguns differently for other than statistical purposes.  Again, the fallback position would be to reduce the barrel length standard to 14 inches, but the whole idea of any distinction between types of firearms is just silly from the start.

Repeal the Hughes Amendment

Machine guns and submachine guns have never been significantly involved in violent crime.  Even in the 1930s, gangsters like Bonnie and Clyde, and Machinegun Kelly tended to get their machineguns by stealing them from the police and military.  Machine guns used in violent crime in recent decades have virtually always been illegal, unreliable conversions using either homemade parts or parts illegally imported and sold over the internet.  It’s time to: “86 the Ban!” Then-Speaker Newt Gingrich promised Neal Knox he would work to repeal the Hughes Amendment in 1986, but, like so many other promises from Republicans, it never came about.These are my top ideas for whittling back current gun control laws. You might notice that in several instances I combined multiple ideas into one proposal, and I would suggest taking that a step further. I think all of these proposals should be introduced as stand-alone bills, but I think they should also be combined into one or two omnibus bills.  Perhaps package all of the bills dealing with the Gun Control Act and the Brady Act under one heading, and all of those dealing with the NFA under another.

The advantage of combining reform legislation, is that it gives gun voters a central rallying point, as happened with the introduction and promotion of the Firearm Owners Protection Act in the late ‘70s and ‘80s.  Having all of the legislation wrapped up in one comprehensive package broadens gun voter support for the whole package and avoids the trap of dividing our troops.  If there comes a point where some particular aspect of an omnibus bill is the key sticking point, we can consider dropping that provision in order to move the rest, then come back for the lost portion in the next session.Like most of you, I don’t like gun control laws.  I think most of them are unconstitutional on their face and should be repealed.  Hopefully, the Supreme Court will eventually agree with us and declare these laws null and void. However, until that happens, we can’t ignore the political reality that we can only accomplish what we can convince Congress to agree to. We might not win everything we want, but we can fight to take back lost ground one piece at a time, the same way we lost it. What did I miss? Are there particular improvements you would like to see that I didn’t mention? Let me know about them at FirearmsCoalition.org. The Knox Report is a service of The Firearms Coalition®. Visit FirearmsCoalition.org for more information and to subscribe to our newsletter and other services.

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