Back in February, in a move that sent shockwaves through Washington, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on live television that she had fired the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) General Counsel, Pamela Hicks. Speaking on Fox News’
America Reports, Bondi revealed that Hicks had been dismissed due to concerns that she was “targeting gun owners.”
As our friends at survivalworld.com observed, Bondi specifically called out Hicks for policies she believed unfairly targeted law-abiding gun owners. As reported by The Four Boxes Diner’s Mark W. Smith, Bondi stated, “We also, um, yesterday I fired the general counsel from ATF… these people were targeting gun owners, not going to happen under this administration.” Smith emphasized that this was a cultural shift, not just a political maneuver, and argued that the significance of this moment would ripple through the gun rights community.
After Hicks, who had spent over 20 years shaping ATF’s anti-constitutional policies, was fired, the question was who would replace her as ATF General Counsel?
Another “career” government lawyer was out of the question if President Trump was to make good on his campaign promises to remove the Democrat jackboot from the necks of America’s law-abiding gun owners.
Shortly after he was sworn-in as FBI Director, pro-2A conservative Kash Patel was appointed Acting Director of the ATF, giving gun owners some much-needed reassurance that help was on the way.
And now, in a result that is better than anyone in the Second Amendment community could have hoped for, 2nd Amendment legal scholar Robert Leider has been appointed the new General Counsel for the ATF.
As Homeland Security Today reported, Leider brings substantial legal credentials and a history of deep engagement with Second Amendment legal issues to his new role at the ATF. Most recently, he was an Associate Professor at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he taught criminal law and torts.
Leider specialized in criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law with particular focus on questions related to the use of force and the rule of law. He has addressed areas such as self-defense law, constitutional allocation of military power, and gun control, and has published in the Florida Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, and The Wall Street Journal.
Before joining Antonin Scalia Law School, Leider worked at prestigious law firms including Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC, and Mayer Brown LLP. His judicial experience includes clerking for Judge Diane S. Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and, perhaps most importantly from our perspective, Leider clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
“Instead of using their political capital to try and dismantle the ATF, gun advocates would likely see more success working within the system. While federal firearms laws cannot be repealed by executive action, they still delegate significant power to the Attorney General (who subdelegates to ATF) on how the laws are implemented. The Trump Administration could shift many ATF policies in their favor.”
Professor Leider’s astute observation about the availability of executive authorities to reshape ATF policies is good news for Second Amendment advocates. Given President Trump’s willingness to use Executive Orders and his other Article II powers to protect constitutional liberty and remove accumulated Democrat incursions into the free exercise of the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, and Robert Leider’s acknowledged expertise in Second Amendment law, we see an era of liberty ahead for America’s law-abiding gun owners.
