Trump Could End Bush Sr.'s 1989 Semi-Auto Rifle Import Ban with Stroke of the Pen

Why Haven't Membership Gun Groups Asked Him?

September 24, 2025 By David Codrea, Politics Field Editor

“There’s something else Trump could do quickly that would not require Congressional approval,” this column reported online last November in Donald Trump and Republicans Owe Gun Owners, and It's Time to Collect. Focused on pledges the president had made to gun owners to solicit their votes, the article explored decisions within the president’s power to make that would help make good on his promises.

What Trump could do, on his own authority, is end the 1989 import ban on semi-automatic rifles pejoratively designated as “assault weapons.” That ban, put in place by Republican President George H.W. Bush, imposed “a permanent import ban on 43 types of semiautomatic assault rifles, including the Chinese-made AK47 and Israeli-made Uzi carbine,” per The Washington Post. The rationale was they “were not being used for sport as required by the Gun Control Act of 1968.” This approved gun control by a Republican president opened the gates for many states and municipalities to ban military-styled semi-auto firearms nationwide without a peep from the Bush Administration or his anti-2A Attorney General William Barr who would later become President Trump’s “best people” attorney general during his first term.

The ban would be “very easy” to overturn, Firearms News Editor-in-Chief Vincent DeNiro assessed. But how? GCA ’68 was a law enacted by Congress. The classification of the semiautos was not.

“President Trump doesn’t even need Congress to get rid of the unconstitutional 1989 ‘assault weapons’ import ban, he just needs to order the BATFE to declare all imported semi-auto rifles as ‘sporting,’ which is what these same models are considered when domestically produced,” DeNiro explained last year. “If he wants to go down in history as a Second Amendment hero, he can make this happen on day one.”

However, President Trump didn’t, and he hasn’t, and we’ll get to that in a moment. First, it’s relevant to reemphasize the truism that the Second Amendment isn’t about duck or deer hunting. We need to remind ourselves of research conducted by author and attorney Richard Stevens, published by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership in 1998, explaining that “This ‘sporting use strategy was used before. The Nazi Weapons Law (18 March 1938) forbade importation of weapons under substantially the same test."

It would, of course, be preferable for the House and Senate to acknowledge what Continental Congress Delegate Tench Coxe asserted: “Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.” But there is no realistic scenario where that will happen in the foreseeable future/our lifetimes. And what can be done by executive action can be undone by executive action. This is something the president can and should do on his own. Why hasn’t he?

Fair speculation is that he’s more than busy, that he and his inner circle must need to focus on priorities, and that no one who influences the president’s thinking has brought this to his attention. Any such sleeve-tugging should include how easy it would be, how it would infuriate his enemies into further alienating themselves from heritage Americans, and how it would reignite fire in the bellies of gun owners before the 2026 midterms (and could even help with November’s governor’s race in Virginia, where 2A stalwart Winsome Earle-Sears needs all the help she can muster against gun-grabbing extremist Abigail Spanberger).

The next question is, why hasn’t it been brought to his attention and explained for the priority that it is? The “gun groups” who claim to have the president’s ear have informed their members about the import ban in the past, so they certainly know it still exists, and they know Donald Trump has the power to make it go away.

Have the 2A membership groups broached this with their contacts in the administration already? Why won’t they publicly call on the president to do so and urge their members to add their voices?

This illustrates yet another reason why the Department of Justice’s vaunted Second Amendment Task Force needs to include gun owner representatives, who could solicit member feedback on priorities, influence the agenda and report on progress, instead of being limited exclusively to self-interested administration careerists. That’s something else no gun group has asked for.

“Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kind of cool” Bill Clinton aide Paul Begala said of that president’s signing of executive orders. While the distinction between Constitutionally enacted laws and policies must never be overlooked, neither should a simple truth:

President Trump has the lawful power to order this reclassification so that previously banned semiautomatic rifles can be imported again and end the tyranny of the 18 USC 922r parts count dance of what constitutes an American-made semi-auto rifle. And that would be kind of cool.

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. In addition to being a regular featured contributor for Firearms News and AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.