Donald Trump’s imminent return to Washington has put gun-safety groups on high alert, as the president-elect once described himself as “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House”.
Emma Brown, executive director of the gun-safety group Giffords, initially reacted to the news of Trump’s victory in the presidential race not with dismay, but with defiance.
“When you take a step back and you look at the multi-decade arc of this issue, it’s obvious that we have had lots of ups and downs,” Brown said. “The first thought in my head [when Trump won] was: we’re ready for this.”
With Trump returning for a second term, gun safety groups acknowledge that they will spend much of the next four years playing defense at the federal level. But despite their disappointment over Kamala Harris’s loss, advocates voiced determination and some cautious optimism about what they can achieve at the state level and through corporate accountability measures during Trump’s presidency.
“We’ve been at this rodeo before,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “But we’ve got the playbook from 2016, and in some ways, I think we’re in much better shape than we were in 2016.”
When Trump first entered the White House in 2017, the National Rifle Association (NRA) was at the height of its power. The gun rights group spent more than $30m in support of Trump’s 2016 campaign, making the organization the largest outside contributor to his election effort. Once he was sworn in, Trump often consulted with the group’s then CEO, Wayne LaPierre, to discuss gun laws. After expressing openness to expanding background checks on gun purchases following two mass shootings in Texas and Ohio in 2019, Trump backtracked following a phone call with LaPierre.
But the power of the NRA has diminished dramatically since Trump left office. LaPierre resigned as CEO earlier this year, just before the start of a civil trial exploring allegations that the longtime leader used NRA funds as his “personal piggy bank”. Legal troubles, financial mismanagement and declining trust in NRA leadership have decimated the organization’s resources. In 2024, the group spent just $4m in support of Trump’s campaign, and a top NRA official recently told members that the president-elect had “lost faith” in the organization.
As the NRA has declined, gun safety advocates have made major strides at the federal and state levels. In 2022, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) into law, marking the first enactment of a major federal gun safety bill in nearly three decades. The legislation, which expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers and incentivized states to pass red flag laws, received unanimous support from Democrats and the backing of 15 Republican senators.
“I’m not trying to be pollyannish about this, but it is a different ballgame,” Feinblatt said. “Democrats are now completely solid on the issue of gun safety. Our grassroots army has grown substantially in the last eight years and is almost three times the size of the NRA.”
To be sure, Trump could still unwind some of the gun safety movement’s accomplishments during his second term. He will almost certainly shutter the office of gun violence prevention, a first-of-its-kind cross-government initiative launched by Biden. Trump could nominate a more gun-friendly official to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or he could simply allow the director post to sit vacant, as it often has in past administrations. Trump may also have the opportunity to nominate more justices to the supreme court, where conservatives have already proved very friendly to gun rights in recent years.
But more significant measures, including a potential repeal of the BSCA, may prove out of reach. In late November, three Republican senators who supported the passage of the law – John Cornyn of Texas, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina – penned an op-ed for Newsweek praising the law’s accomplishments, sending an early signal about their stance on its repeal.
“The political calculus has changed, and I think that’s been recognized,” Feinblatt said. “And that really was why [then Senate minority leader Mitch] McConnell had his conference vote for BSCA in 2022. The midterms were around the corner, and [mass shootings in] Uvalde and Buffalo had just happened, and he realized that it would not be politically smart to be the party that had resisted everything.”
Still, with additional federal legislation appearing unlikely for the next four years, gun safety groups plan to devote even more attention to the states, which have already provided ample opportunity for change. Since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012, states have passed more than 700 gun safety laws, with 88 being enacted this year alone, according to Giffords. Gun safety advocates may face fewer hurdles at the state level, given that Democrats largely held their ground in state legislatures this year even as they sustained losses in federal races.
“I have every expectation that we will build on that progress in 2025, not lose it,” Brown said. “We see states as the testing ground in a lot of ways for some of our most innovative solutions to this problem.”
Some gun safety advocates are even looking beyond federal and state governments to advance their agenda. The group Guns Down America has launched a “Business Must Act” campaign imploring corporations to ban the open carry of firearms in stores and to use their financial capital in support of policy change. The campaign includes a scorecard where supporters can see how each company ranks in terms of gun safety.
“We think this is Guns Down America’s moment to shine because, with the policymaking process at the federal level, I don’t think anyone has much hope for that in the next two to four years, and … the problem isn’t going to go away by itself,” said the group’s executive director, Hudson Munoz.
The group’s efforts have been successful in the past. After a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, thousands of supporters joined Guns Down America’s call for the corporation to ban open carry in stores and end firearm sales. A month into the campaign, Walmart announced it would suspend the sale of handguns as well as certain types of ammunition and prohibit the open carry of firearms in stores.
“We see corporate accountability, right now activated in our ‘Business Must Act’ campaign, as the place where we can continue to build on progress that happened in the last four years,” Munoz said. “It’s time for us to be creative.”
Gun safety advocates’ determination is perhaps unsurprising, considering many of them are no strangers to adversity. Giffords was founded by the former Democratic representative Gabby Giffords, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after she was shot in the head during an event with constituents in 2011. After the shooting, Giffords had to relearn how to walk, write and speak, and she has now become one of the most prominent leaders of the gun safety movement.
The day after the election, Giffords joined a call with all of the members of her organization, Brown recounted, and she offered a simple instruction to them: move ahead.
“We are led by a woman who has survived the unsurvivable, who has stared down the toughest of conditions and not blinked,” Brown said. “This is a moment for courage and fortitude and the pursuit of unlikely allies.”
