On April 29, 2026, the Department of Justice and the ATF dropped 34 notices of final and proposed rulemaking in a single package. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called it the end of weaponization of federal authority against law-abiding gun owners. Newly confirmed ATF Director Robert Cekada signed the package on his first day in office. The DOJ described it as the most significant regulatory overhaul in ATF history.
That is a significant political statement. Here is the constitutional one: none of it fixes the core problem. Regulatory relief is not constitutional correction. An agency choosing to enforce less aggressively is not the same thing as admitting the underlying statute is void. And until someone is willing to say that out loud, the machinery stays intact, ready for the next administration to reverse course on day one.
What the 34 Rules Actually Are
The package organizes 34 actions into five categories: Repeal, Modernize, Reduce Burden, Clarify, and Align. The Repeal category is where the real action is. The DOJ is formally moving to rescind the 2024 Engaged in the Business rule that forced private sellers, part-time hobbyists, and online collectors to obtain a Federal Firearms License. Also in the Repeal category: the 2023 stabilizing brace rule that reclassified millions of legally owned pistols as short-barreled rifles subject to the National Firearms Act. Federal courts had already gutted that rule in FRAC v. Garland. The ATF is now formally unwinding what the courts already rejected.
The Constitutional Problem Nobody Is Saying Out Loud
While the ATF rolls back administrative burdens, DOJ attorneys are still standing up in appellate courts defending 18 U.S.C. 922(g). The same administration announcing these reforms has not told those lawyers to change their position. The Supreme Court is currently handling United States v. Hemani, which addresses 922(g)(3), the bar on possession by anyone who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. A ruling is expected before the term ends in June or July 2026, and it is widely expected to set the binding framework for how courts evaluate as-applied challenges to all categorical exclusions under 922(g). That ruling will matter more than all 34 rules combined.
Here is what the constitutional position actually demands. The Second Amendment states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Article VI states that only laws made in pursuance of the Constitution share supremacy. A statute that categorically strips the right from entire classes of citizens based on legislative labels, without individualized adversarial process, without a founding-era historical analogue that survives Bruen, is not made in pursuance of the Constitution. Under Norton v. Shelby County, it never was law at all. Regulatory relief does not get you there. An unconstitutional act does not become constitutional because the agency enforcing it decides to be nicer about it.
What These Rules Do Get Right
To be precise: several of these rules are correct responses to real constitutional problems. Rescinding the pistol brace rule is right because it exceeded statutory authority. Rescinding the Engaged in the Business expansion is right because Congress did not authorize it. Eliminating advance ATF approval for NFA interstate transport removes a prior restraint on lawful conduct with no constitutional foundation. These are genuine corrections. The problem is what they leave untouched. The background check system, 922(g) categorical prohibitions, and the NFA core registration framework survive this package intact. The administration is trimming the edges of a structure it has not examined at the foundation. Acting AG Blanche said the Second Amendment is not a second-class right. He is correct. The test is whether the DOJ appellate lawyers get the same memo.