WASHINGTON, D.C. — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and ATF Director Robert Cekada announced in Washington that the Justice Department will propose 34 changes to federal firearms regulations intended to ease burdens on the firearms industry and lawful gun owners. The proposals were published in the Federal Register, four days after a gunman attack at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Cekada was newly confirmed as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives when he joined Blanche at the announcement. Representatives from the NRA and Gun Owners of America also stood alongside them. The published changes focus on reducing paperwork for the firearms industry and formalizing the end of rules previously blocked by courts.

"The Second Amendment will never be treated as a second-class right in the Trump administration," Blanche said. "The Second Amendment is not negotiable," he added.

Cekada said the reforms reflect the ATF's mission to protect public safety and enforce the law through clear, legally sound, and narrowly tailored regulations. "I've been a law enforcement officer for over 34 years. I would never let the public be at risk based on the regulations that we are proposing today," he said.

Among the changes, the new rules unwind Biden-era regulations restricting pistol-stabilizing braces, which attach to the end of a pistol, making shooting more accurate and allowing users to fire the gun like a rifle. In 2023, an ATF rule went into effect requiring owners to destroy the braces or register their braced guns; that rule had been blocked by the courts. In 2021, a gunman used a pistol-stabilizing brace to kill 10 people at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.

Kris Brown, president of Brady, said the deregulation raises public safety concerns. "There's no public safety argument that can possibly be made for why you would want to eliminate the regulation of stabilizing braces. Because literally, if you buy that product and put it on a pistol, it becomes a short-barreled rifle," Brown said. "You cannot be tough on crime and support the deregulation of stabilizing braces. Full stop. And that's really an analogy for the rest of [the regulations] we see here."

The federal government sets minimum standards for firearm use and transactions, including background checks, barring most felons from having guns, and rules for dealer licenses, while most rules affecting individuals' ability to carry guns in public are set by individual states. The Trump administration has initiated lawsuits against states that impose heavier restrictions on firearms. The Justice Department sued Colorado through the Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force, alleging the state unconstitutionally bans larger-capacity rifle magazines, and sued the city of Denver over its assault weapons ban. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a bill banning the sale of assault weapons and other gun safety laws; the department said it would challenge those laws in court.