Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Trump administration takes major steps to roll back gun regulations

Transcript

Trump administration takes major steps to roll back gun regulations · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: During his race for the White House, President Donald Trump
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: pledged to expand Second Amendment rights nationwide. Now his administration
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: is taking major steps to roll back gun restrictions put
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: into place for public safety. Our Justice correspondent Ali Rogan
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: has more omner.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Earlier this year, the Justice Department unveiled a major roadmap
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: to reduce regulations on purchasing firearms, arguing that changes would
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: quote modernize gun policy. Now the Department is also taking
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: more targeted actions, going after Democratic led states for their
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: own gun restrictions. For more on the Trump administration's efforts
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: to broaden Second Amendment rights, I'm joined now by Chip Brownly.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: He's a staff writer at The Trace covering federal gun policy. Chip,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: thanks so much, Welcome to the News Hour. I want
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: to ask you first about these rollbacks that the dj
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: has announced. What rules and policies would be would be
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: impacted here.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So, the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: and Explosives, has proposed a range of rollbacks, about three
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: dozen in total. I would say most of the proposals
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: that they have are actually pretty administrative. They update and
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: modernized some of the processes that gun dealers use. But
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: there are a couple of things in there that are
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: pretty significant. One that has gotten a lot of criticism
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: from the gun reform side of things is a rule
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: that was intended to close the gun show loophole. The
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Trump administration has proposed rolling back that rule. And then
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: there are some other things like reducing regulations on short
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: barrel rifles and bump stocks, bump stocks being the one
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: of those devices that was used in the Los Las
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Vegas mass shooting in twenty seventeen. And some of those
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: regulations are actually just bringing things back in line with
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: what the Supreme Court has said in terms of things
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: like the bump stocks. But the big thing is the
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: rule that was intended to close the gun show loophole.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Another rollback that's caused some controversy, and that is reducing
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the restrictions on people with mental illness to own a firearm.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: That's upset some gun safety groups. What kind of risks
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: are involved with that rollback.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Well, the ATF. The ATF itself actually said that there's
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: a risk that rolling that rule back could result in
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: mass casualty events. I don't know how big of an
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: impact that's going to be, because right now, federal law
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: is that if you were involuntarily committed into a psychiatric institution,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: for example, you would lose your gun rights, and that
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: that remains the law. This is kind of clarifying essentially
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: that if you were voluntarily entering yourself into a into
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: a facility, that wouldn't count. And then some other things
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: about if you have been previously you know, rule does
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: not able to handle your own affairs, kind of removing
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: some of that stuff. But this is a regulation and
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: a rule that's been back and forth between the Trump
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: administration and the going back to the Obama administration. So
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know that that one will have as big
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: of an impact as some people are saying it will.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And I should mention that Acting Attorney General tub Blanch
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: has disavowed some of the conclusions in that ATF study,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: saying they really don't indicate there's any increased risk. I
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: also want to ask you about these lawsuits that the
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Department of Justice is pursuing against bands in the states
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: of California and Virginia against certain types of firearms. What
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: led to those suits?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so ever since the Trump administration took over the
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Department of Justice, they've really kind of refocused the Civil
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Rights Division to focus on gun rights and enforcing gun rights.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: This is the same division that was previously enforcing voting
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: rights and desegregating schools going back to the nineteen sixties,
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: and since last year, the Trump administration has since focused
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: on gun rights and they've brought seven different lawsuits against
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: jurisdictions across the country. One of them, the most recent one,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: is against California's handgun roster Require regulations, which is basically
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: a list of approved handguns that people can buy. And
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: then another regulation in California essentially banning blocks because there's
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: a piece of a block that makes it more kind
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: of susceptible to being outfitted with a switch and turned
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: into a machine gun. And then in Virginia, the Department
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: of Justice has sued the state over its assault weapons ban,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: and that's one of a number of different lawsuits the
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Department has brought against assault weapons bans, also in Denver
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: and DC and some other places as well. I'm not
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: aware of the Civil Rights Division really enforcing gun rights
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: at any point before this. This new section has since
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: brought seven lawsuits against jurisdictions across the country, So this
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: is really a new thing that we haven't seen before.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: And the Supreme Court has said session they're going to
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: take up two cases in which one state and one
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: local assault weapons ban are being discussed. What are the
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: implications if they rule against those ban?
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so they are about a dozen states across the
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: country that have assault weapons bans and then some municipalities
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: and local jurisdictions that have them. So if the Supreme
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Court shruck down the assault weapons bans in this case,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: that would mean that most of those, if not all
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: of those across the country would also be unconstitutional. The
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: two here that the Supreme Court has taken are assault
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: weapons bans in Connecticut and Cook County, which is Chicago,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: and those laws have been on the book since the
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: nineteen nineties, and now the Supreme Court is likely going
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: to rule them unconstitutional. This is again, so you would
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: have a dozen states across the country that could lose
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: their assault weapons bans. A lot of these laws passed
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: in the wake of mass shootings across the country.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Jim Brownly with the Trace, Thank you so much.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Mm hmmm hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm hm.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Support journalism you trust, Support PBS News. Donate now, or
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: even better, start a monthly contribution Today