DOJ in Rebellion Against the Trump Admin?

Gun Owners of America (GOA) is sounding the alarm: the Department of Justice is actively defending Biden’s “zero tolerance” firearm dealer license revocation scheme—even under the Trump administration. That’s a head-scratcher.

Here’s the scoop: early in Biden’s term, ATF launched a policy that triggered automatic revocation of federal firearms dealer licenses—even for minor, unintentional paperwork errors.

Dealers found themselves losing their livelihoods over clerical slips. Within two years, revocations had surged six-fold.

GOA pushed back. In 2023 they filed lawsuits on behalf of Morehouse Enterprises in North Dakota and Kill & Tactical in Florida, challenging the policy’s constitutionality.

As these cases progressed, ATF would quietly drop the revocation, only to ask courts to dismiss the case as “moot”—effectively playing whack-a-mole with legal challenges.

They didn’t back down. GOA took the fight all the way.

In one case, ATF actually argued the policy didn’t implicate the Second Amendment or violate federal law. They claimed that dealers have no constitutional right to sell firearms—something the White House publicly disputes. That kind of legal contortion could allow a ban on all gun sales, blinking out the Second Amendment entirely.

Then Trump won again and reversed course, issuing executive orders that dismantled zero tolerance. His team even acknowledged that Biden’s ATF had weaponized the agency to punish law-abiding small business owners.

Given that reversal, everyone expected DOJ to support GOA’s lawsuits. Surprisingly, they’re doubling down on defense of the policy.

GOA now calls DOJ’s position an “open rebellion” against the Trump administration. DOJ lawyers still argue: (1) the policy didn’t cause any injury; (2) revocations weren’t automatic; (3) the Second Amendment doesn’t protect dealers’ commercial activity.

Yet ATF itself has admitted the policy was automatic and that minor mistakes punished honest dealers. These contradictions are all laid out in GOA’s latest brief at the D.C. Circuit Court.

GOA’s concern?

Without a binding court judgment declaring the policy unconstitutional, a future anti-gun administration could simply reinstate zero tolerance—again killing small businesses with a stroke. That’s not theoretical: that’s the reality GOA wants to stop.

It’s a stark illustration of how executive policy and court fights can pull in different directions—even under the same administration. DOJ should be defending Trump’s reversal, not doubling down on the prior regime’s abuses. Instead, dealers remain at risk.

Why this matters: If zero-tolerance policies stand without a legal check, any future administration could weaponize the ATF at will. A government that can revoke your license for paperwork errors essentially controls who can stay in business, regardless of the Constitution.

Bottom line: GOA is asking a simple question—why is DOJ defending a policy that even the White House opposes?

Dealers deserve clarity.

The Second Amendment shouldn’t hang in the balance because a legal team refuses to acknowledge what their own agency admitted.

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