Trump Administration Actions on Gun Violence So Far

The WHOGVP operated similarly to FEMA and was the first central hub for coordinating a federal response to gun violence. Shuttering this office silos the work of federal agencies as they respond to daily gun violence and mass shootings, potentially slowing how quickly support reaches the communities who need it most. Learn more about how the WHOGVP operated during the Biden Administration.

Trump directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to dismantle proven safety measures enacted by the Biden Administration, including those that helped reduce gun crime. The order specifically called for a review of actions taken between January 2021 and January 2025—the time Biden held office. This action isn’t about the Second Amendment: It’s about a disregard for public safety.

In the statement announcing the DOJ Task Force, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi emphasized that its work will serve “to advance President Trump’s pro-gun agenda.” Per the memo that established the Task Force, it is made up of representatives from across the government, including:

• Bondi and members of her staff
• The Associate Attorney General
• The Office of the Deputy Attorney General
• The Office of the Associate Attorney General
• The Office of the Solicitor General
• The Civil Rights Division
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
• “Any other components or representatives” that Bondi “may from time to time designate to assist in the Task Force’s labors.”

It is likely that this Task Force will shift critical Department personnel, resources, and efforts from gun violence prevention to industry-favored priorities.

In April, “roughly 10,000 employees were cut” from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including entire teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Injury Center. The Injury Center collects data about violent deaths and injuries, including:

• Overdoses
• Suicides
• Traumatic brain injuries
• Domestic violence
• Multiple forms of youth violence
• Drowning
• Gun violence, including homicides and unintentional shootings

Critically, the CDC Injury Center is the only entity with the resources and personnel to aggregate this data, providing a comprehensive picture of violent injury that informs what other federal agencies, states, and private-sector organizations do on injury, violence, and prevention. Following the HHS layoffs, even staff remaining at the CDC face significant barriers to carrying out their life-saving work and data collection, as “the entire branch charged with analyzing data for the injury center and maintaining a key database were fired, leaving the systems largely unattended.”

In June 2024, then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence in America to be a public health crisis—a historic first. That designation emphasized the importance of treating gun violence not just as isolated incidents, but as a national crisis that can be treated through prevention, intervention, and policy change. Removing the public health guidance glosses over the severity of our uniquely American problem, even as the administration advances actions to make it worse.

In April 2025, the DOJ terminated grants funding critical public safety and violence intervention work. According to an analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice, these grants had a total initial award value of over $819 million and impacted “goals and issue areas” that touched “nearly every element of America’s safety and justice systems.” Although CVI programs have been shown to reduce violence, these programs saw the greatest cuts to their initial award value at nearly $169 million in terminated funding. This figure includes $8.6 million in cuts for “evaluations, research, and related efforts.”

Other funding cuts included grants supporting:

• Funding for victims and survivors of violent crime;
• School safety initiatives, including the STOP School Violence Program designed to decrease violence in K–12 schools; 
• Hate crime prevention and response; and
• Mental health and substance use interventions, including the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program

An internal memo obtained by the Associated Press outlined plans to lay off over 80,000 workers at the VA, an agency whose workforce comprises over 25 percent veterans. As reported by ProPublica, approximately 9 million veterans receive health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). 

Coupled with funding cuts to agencies and programs at the federal level, these reductions in resources for the VA are already causing “severe and immediate impacts” to the physical and emotional well-being of veterans. These include an “inability to track oncology treatment and recurrences” for veterans receiving cancer treatment and slashing funding for clinical trials for treating head and neck cancer. The Trump Administration also laid off employees with the Veterans Crisis Line, which provides support to veterans at risk of suicide—an oxymoronic move for an administration that made veteran suicide prevention a policy priority in 2020. An average of 18 veterans die by suicide in the U.S. each day, 13 of them by firearm, and a short-staffed hotline is likely to increase wait times. Notably, veterans are three times more likely to die by firearm suicide than their non-veteran counterparts, underscoring the need for comprehensive crisis support.

On May 16, the Trump administration reached a settlement in a case brought by the National Association for Gun Rights challenging an ATF ruling that banned forced-reset triggers, which automatically return forward (or reset) after being pulled. Forced-reset triggers increase a weapon’s rate of fire to mimic fully automatic guns—allowing a shooter to fire an entire magazine’s worth of ammunition in seconds.

Military-grade weapons of war don’t belong on our streets, which is why machine guns have been tightly regulated under federal law for 90 years. This deadly case settlement is yet another example of the Trump administration placing protecting “gun rights” over protecting the lives of our children and community members.

When Trump took office in 2025, he began filling key federal leadership positions with gun extremists, including Dan Bongino and Kash Patel.

Patel, a dangerous extremist who started a foundation to help defend the extremists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, currently serves as the director of the FBI—an agency whose mission is to protect the public from violent crime, including gun violence. Patel has strong and extreme ties to Gun Owners of America, which opposes “all forms of background checks” and believes the ATF should be abolished. Patel previously served as the acting director of the ATF.

Meanwhile, Bongino—a former NRATV host, Fox News contributor, and frequent InfoWars guest—has a history of vilifying FBI agents for conducting investigations into President Trump. Bongino is now the Deputy Director of the FBI.

The Trump administration announced the end of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “zero tolerance” policy, a move specifically requested by the gun lobby. This policy tasked the ATF with revoking the licenses of gun dealers who willfully violate federal law, including by failing to run background checks, transferring firearms to prohibited persons, and/or falsifying records. While the “zero tolerance” policy was in place, the average number of monthly gun dealer inspections increased by 82 percent. As a consequence, gun stores that repeatedly failed to document gun sales and facilitated straw purchases were shut down. Now, the ATF has announced that Federal Firearm Licensees who had their licenses revoked under the “zero tolerance” policy “may reapply,” potentially allowing FFLs who willfully violated federal law to reopen their doors.

ATF, the federal agency tasked with enforcing our nation’s gun laws, has, in its own words, faced “substantial external and internal challenges” in carrying out its key duties in recent years. In February 2024, the ATF’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request included a request to add nearly 600 positions and “$208.1 million in program enhancements to support the Bureau’s mission objectives.”

One year later, however, the White House seems to think that, among other agencies, ATF’s duties are “found to be laden with spending contrary to the needs of ordinary working Americans.” Trump’s proposed FY 2026 budget includes a $468 million reduction in ATF budget and a plan to “refocus ATF enforcement and regulatory priorities.” Additionally, according to exclusive reporting from Reuters, “about 80% of its [ATF’s] roughly 2,500 agents have been ordered to take on at least some immigration enforcement tasks,” further diverting ATF agent capacity from key responsibilities.

In April, the Department of Homeland Security slashed funding for “Centers of Excellence.” These Centers are Congressionally mandated through the Homeland Security Act and are housed in universities across the country to coordinate and “conduct groundbreaking research” into national security threats. One Center that is “scheduled for termination” and housed out of Northeastern University “develops strategies and innovative solutions to secure soft targets and crowded places from attacks,” including “schools, surface transportation, sports arenas, places of worship, large outdoor events, and retail facilities.” High-profile mass shootings have been perpetrated in all of these locations in the last decade.

Trump administration funding cuts have heavily impacted initiatives designed to reduce crime in rural locations and at the local and state levels and support law enforcement, including:

• Project Safe Neighborhoods (local crime)
• State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) program (domestic and international terrorism and hate crimes)
• Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative (financial support for rural law enforcement)
• Violent Crime Reduction Roadmap (centralized training and assistance for law enforcement and other officials)
• The VALOR Initiative, which strives to protect the physical and emotional health of law enforcement as they “navigate the challenging and often-dangerous conditions of their work.”

Learn more from the Council on Criminal Justice about the impact of these cuts.

In March, the Department of Justice finalized a new rule to bypass a longstanding funding restriction that prevents ATF from restoring access to guns to prohibited persons by shifting that power back to DOJ. That interim final rule reverses more than 30 years of precedent, making it easier for violent criminals and domestic abusers to regain access to guns. With this interim final rule, the Trump administration is putting law enforcement, communities, and families at risk by opening the floodgates to prohibited persons, including violent criminals and felons, to rearm themselves. The interim final rule came just days after Elizabeth Oyer, then-U.S. Pardon Attorney for the Department of Justice, was abruptly terminated. Oyer alleges that her firing was connected to her refusal to restore the right of Mel Gibson, who was convicted on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge in 2011, to purchase or possess a firearm. Gibson’s gun ownership rights have since been restored.

Abusers with firearms are five times more likely to kill their female victims, and more than two-thirds of all intimate partner homicides in the United States are committed with a gun. Firearms in the hands of an abuser also pose a threat to the law enforcement responding to an incident. Department of Justice studies show that of officers killed responding to domestic disputes and domestic-related calls for service, 97 percent were killed with a firearm.