The Premise
Back at Gun Rights Policy Conference in Salt Lake City earlier this year, SDCGO Executive Director Michael Schwartz and I had a conversation about how Republican presidential candidates like to talk a big game about protecting Second Amendment rights but, once in office, often fail to deliver in any meaningful way. Granted, politicians have been reneging on their promises since before representative democracy even existed, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept being lied to. In fact, this list was supposed to have five entries, but I honestly couldn’t find five pro-2A presidents since 1975. This blog post is adapted from a segment I did on Gun Owners Radio last month about how little real action we’ve seen at the federal level from ostensibly gun-friendly administrations.
Ground Rules
Talk is cheap, action is expensive. When assembling this list, I ranked each U.S. president in the past half-century based on what he actually did to protect the right to keep and bear arms, not his rhetoric on the campaign trail or even while in office. That said, rhetoric often speaks to underlying attitudes on the issue at hand, so I’ll mention some relevant quotes as well; just know that those didn’t influence the rankings.
As for the time period, I focused on the past fifty years because, for much of our country’s history, gun control wasn’t anything like the hot-button issue it is today, and the partisan divide on that issue wasn’t nearly so sharply defined. Also, beyond some point, past policy is increasingly irrelevant to our current political situation. For what it’s worth, the longest-serving federal legislators currently in office, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) began their careers in Congress approximately fifty years ago, so there’s a very real connection between the two parties’ politics in 2025 and in 1975.
4. Ronald Reagan
If any historical figures have had as much influence on modern political parties as Ronald Reagan has had on the Republicans, there can’t be many. To this day, people who aren’t even old enough to remember a time when he was alive give Reagan quotes the same adulation as bible verses, holding him up as an icon of the American Right. Given this former California Democrat’s affected cowboy persona and de facto status as NeoCon Jesus, it’s easy to gloss over his distinctly unfavorable positions toward the right to keep and bear arms.
The only reason Reagan even earns a spot on this list is his signing of the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA) in 1986. The Act has numerous gun-friendly provisions, most notably a crackdown on the harassment of FFLs by ATF and the “safe passage” provision. The latter allows us to travel unmolested across state lines with our firearms provided those firearms are legal where we’re coming from, legal where we’re going, and locked and inaccessible while we’re driving.
The factor that knocks Reagan down to the bottom of this list is the Hughes Amendment, a poison pill in FOPA closing the federal machinegun (legal spelling) registry so no more items could be registered. “So what,” you may be saying, “I don’t own a machine gun and never will.” Apart from being unconstitutional, the Hughes Amendment set the precedent for an entire class of firearm to be effectively outlawed by making them nearly impossible to legally obtain. It isn’t difficult to imagine a situation in which more common types are rendered de facto illegal by the same mechanism: Suppose a law is passed subjecting handguns, for example, to mandatory registration. Suppose a law is then passed which eliminates the registration process but not the scheme itself, meaning no new handguns may be purchased. Over the subsequent years, the market value of those now-scarce firearms will dramatically increase, and the supply will gradually dwindle, leaving handguns—the most popular type of firearm for self-defense—out of financial reach for most people. This is exactly what Ronald Reagan did with machine guns.
3. George W. Bush
Bush earned his place on this list by participating in Republican elected officials’ favorite activity: doing nothing. By allowing the “assault weapon” ban to sunset in 2004, he kind of made it legal for civilians to own AR- and AK-type rifles with more “features,” such as threaded barrels and adjustable stocks. As a reminder, the ban didn’t outlaw firearms based on actual functionality (probably because it was written by people who, like most anti-gunners, don’t know what they’re talking about), but by model name and a list of largely cosmetic features. It was annoying and stupid and we’re all glad it’s gone.
On the campaign trail, Bush Jr. tried to tread a fine line between being pro-gun and not looking like an extremist to uninformed voters. His 2000 campaign website actually stated that he supported the ban, but I don’t think that got many anti-gunners to vote for him. The version of Bush we saw in the debates was generally fairly moderate on Second Amendment issues, advocating for raising age limits but supporting NICS and advocating tougher enforcement of existing laws to keep guns out of criminal hands. Again, though, we care about what he did in office rather than what he said at any time.
2. Barack Obama
Yes, America’s Greatest Gun Salesman himself. We all remember how he kept trying to go after legal gun ownership, we all remember the talk of “assault weapon” bans, and of course we all remember the sudden shortages of standard-capacity magazines (and .22 LR ammunition for some reason). He never got any gun control through, though. What he did do was, for the first time in two decades, open up permission to carry in national parks as long as you’re also following relevant federal and state laws. Though modest in significance, that measure is definitely appreciated by those of us who live in areas with bears and other dangerous wildlife. In a separate bill, he also repealed a ban on traveling via train with a gun, as long as it is locked and unloaded. These actions earned Obama an F grade from Brady in 2010. They aren’t huge measures by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that they’re more than we got from Bush speaks volumes about Republicans’ commitment to the right to keep and bear arms.
1. Donald Trump
I have no shortage of substantive criticisms to level against the current administration, but I have to acknowledge that, for all its failures, the Trump administration has done a better job protecting the Second Amendment than any other in the last half-century. Mind you, he’s far from perfect—Trump’s DOJ has been inconsistent at best in its protection of the right to keep and bear arms, with AG Bondi failing to deliver the required report on her department’s past and ongoing anti-2A activities. They’re continuing the ridiculous Adamiak case and claiming that knives aren’t protected under the Second Amendment, too.
That said, we’ve received several favorable SCOTUS rulings heavily influenced by Trump-appointed justices. NRA CEO and Executive Vice President Doug Hamlin has pointed out that, in Trump’s first term in office from 2017 to 2021, he appointed three new Supreme Court justices who ruled favorably in the 6–3 Bruen decision. Without those appointments, the case very well could have gone 6–3 against. Furthermore, ATF’s Biden-era “zero-tolerance” policy is no longer in effect, leaving FFLs much safer from harassment by federal agents than they were just a year ago. We’ve also gotten the $200 transfer fee for some NFA items reduced to $0, which may make the NFA itself easier to challenge in court.
Conclusion
Although the current administration is generally more favorable toward the right to keep and bear arms than past ones, the fact that I have to qualify that statement with such a load-bearing “generally” is frankly shameful. The bottom line is this: Republicans are not your friends. Democrats aren’t your friends either. Regardless of partisan affiliation, any politician will say whatever it takes to get your money and your vote, then immediately renege on every promise for a crumb of political capital. Vote with your brain. As for the politicians who are already in office, they’ve been known to respond to pressure their constituents exert through letters, phone calls, and in recent years, public callouts on social media. Tell your elected officials how important these issues are to you, and if necessary, explain to them why they should fight for your right to keep and bear arms.
