As Pam Bondi awaits Senate confirmation to be Attorney General, one part of Trump’s coalition isn’t happy about her nomination: Second Amendment activists. Bondi, a longtime Trump ally, was attorney general of Florida when 17 high school students and staff members were killed in Parkland, Fla.,in 2018. After the shooting, she banned gun sales to people younger than 21 and helped enact a red flag law, allowing law enforcement to petition a judge to temporarily confiscate the guns of someone deemed to be a threat to themselves or someone else. These moves sowed seeds of distrust toward her among the most stringent Second Amendment activists and groups, like the National Rifle Association (NRA), Gun Owners of America and the National Association of Gun Rights, who have argued that Bondi’s actions infringe on their rights, The Guardian reports. Democrats have also criticized her loyalty to Trump and work as a lobbyist for Amazon and Uber, and have raised concerns that she will use her power to go after Trump’s personal and political rivals. “She’s had a rocky relationship with the gun rights groups, it’s a mixed bag from their point of view,” said Stephen Gutowski, of The Reload, a news site that covers gun ownership and policies. That strained relationship hasn’t seemed to move Republicans. Despite the warnings from gun rights groups leading up to her Senate confirmation hearing, no Republicans questioned her about gun control.
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“I think it’s a bad sign for the gun rights movement,” Gutowski said. “They didn’t even get a vocal assurance that she wouldn’t pursue those [policies] on the national level.” Most of her positions on guns already align with Trump, who, despite his appeals to gun owners, also has a mixed record on guns and gun policy. After 58 people were shot and killed at a 2017 musical festival in Las Vegas, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, Trump banned bump stocks, the accessory used by the shooter. Over the next two years, after high other high-profile shootings Trump backed for red flag laws. After a 20-year freeze on gun violence research, Trump signed a bill that allowed federal research funds to resume. He has also called for school hardening, or built-in security and deterrents in schools, and for teachers and school staff who already have firearms training to carry guns on campuses. He appointed a slew of Second Amendment-friendly judges, which set the stage for the consequential 2022 Bruen decision, which recognized the right of people to carry loaded guns in public and set a new standard for determining the constitutionality of gun laws. During Bondi’s confirmation hearings, the lone question on guns came from California Democrat Alex Padilla, who asked if she was willing to push for policies such as universal background checks and a national red flag law. Bondi responded: “I would be glad to meet with you and review any legislation that you have, Padilla voted against advancing her nomination but said her position on gun safety represented “glimmers of potential agreement”.
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