ATF Game-Changer? Gun-Rights Scholar Nabs Chief Counsel Post

In what could prove to be a momentous development, the new top lawyer at the ever-overreaching Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is a Second Amendment proponent and scholar who clerked for the Supreme Court's foremost gun-rights advocate. "Good news from the DOJ today," said the National Association for Gun Rights. "This one could be HUGE." 

The move came without any official publicity. Robert Leider's name and photo simply appeared on the ATF Leadership page last week, indicating he now holds the title of Assistant Director/Chief Counsel. Leider fills a vacancy created by Attorney General Pam Bondi's February firing of previous Chief Counsel Pamela Hicks. 

At the time, Bondi told Fox News, "Yesterday I fired the general counsel from ATF. These people were targeting gun owners. Not gonna happen under this administration." Continuing to shake things up last month, Trump also made the unusual move of giving Kash Patel control of the ATF as well at the FBI. 

The Truth About Guns

Leider comes to his new role from an associate professor post at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School. Earlier in his career, he clerked for Clarence Thomas when Thomas was a Seventh Circuit and then a Supreme Court justice. He has a blog encouragingly titled Standing His Ground, and has written about gun control, self-defense law and what he calls the "constitutional allocation of military power." 

In an April 2024 blog post about gun control targeting AR-15's and other rifles, Leider assailed a lower-court ruling that upheld an Illinois AR-15 and "high capacity" magazine ban, with judges claiming the Supreme Court's Heller ruling asserted the Second Amendment only applies to self-defense against crime. "The Seventh Circuit’s rule...that arms most useful in military service are constitutionally unprotected is a complete perversion of the traditional understanding of the Second Amendment," Leider wrote. In an August 2024 article published at SSRI, Leider championed the idea that the Second Amendment protects "an individual right for common defense." 

Leider's writing has also appeared at The Reload, a gun-rights-friendly outlet that provides detailed perspectives on developments in the realm of firearms law and related political developments. In a December essay there, Leider argued that gun-rights advocates should set aside fever dreams of a Trump-era dismantling of the ATF in favor of effecting desired regulatory reforms from inside an intact ATF: 

Most regulations that burden gun owners and dealers come directly from federal firearms laws... Shutting down ATF would do nothing to relieve the legal restrictions imposed by federal gun-control laws. These restrictions stem directly from laws passed by Congress, and only Congress can change or eliminate them. Gun advocates are unlikely to find sixty votes in the Senate to repeal or reform most federal gun laws...If ATF did not exist, the Attorney General would either need to handle these functions personally or delegate the functions to another bureau. 

While Leider's hiring hasn't been reported by major media, word is ricocheting around independent and social media, with gun-rights advocates expressing preliminary enthusiasm:

•  “Huge!" said Georgetown Law's Randy Barnett.  "Rob was a Visiting Scholar of the @GUConstitution Center doing important work on the militia. His recent paper on the individual right to arms for common defense is important.”
• "Leider has an extensive written record of his duty to and reverence for the United States Constitution and the Second Amendment," wrote Darwin Nercesian at The Truth About Guns. 
• "[Bondi] has made an incredibly important and -- we believe -- very positive hiring," said Washington Gun Law President William Kirk on the entity's YouTube channel.  

That said, advocates of armed self-defense will have to wait and see if this is truly the game-changer they're hoping for.