President-elect Trump’s nomination of controversial Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz for Attorney General lasted only eight days, or less than one Scaramucci; a unit of measurement often used jokingly on X (formerly Twitter) referencing the comically short eleven-day tenure of former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. Hours after Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration, likely due to lack of Republican support in the Senate, the incoming president nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the Department of Justice.

Bondi, a prosecutor by trade who most recently worked as a lobbyist and was a member of President Trump’s legal team during the 2020 impeachment proceedings, served as Attorney General of Florida from 2011-2019. Unlike now-former Congressman Gaetz, Bondi has traditional resume that you would expect from a candidate nominated for AG, and barring an act of God, or at least an act of extraordinary effective opposition research, she will be confirmed by the Senate, likely with as much bipartisan support as could be expected in our hyper-partisan political climate.

Florida took a dramatic turn rightward beginning with Governor Ron DeSantis’s near 20-point re-election victory in 2022, and that trend continued this year with President Trump carrying the state by double digits, but the sunshine state was still solidly purple during Bondi’s tenure in office, with the state voting Democratic in the 2012 presidential election and Republican in 2016. Her moderate record reflects those of other swing state attorneys general, but her history on the Second Amendment leaves a lot to be desired if you are a defender of gun rights.

In 2013, Attorney General Bondi defended Florida’s law banning citizens from openly carrying guns. “We have not seen a Florida Attorney General take such drastic anti-Second Amendment positions since 1987 when Bob Butterworth fought tooth and nail against concealed carry licensing,” said gun rights organization Florida Carry, Inc. Executive Director Sean Caranna. “We’ve previously spoken to staffers at the highest level of Bondi’s office to be sure that they were aware of the impact this case has on the right to bear arms. This is an attempted end-run around the Constitution that she swore an oath to protect.”

After the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Bondi supported anti-gun legislation signed into law by former Governor Rick Scott including bills that established so-called red flag laws in the state and raised the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21. “This bill is not perfect, and sadly it will not bring back the 17 lives lost in the horrific school shooting, but the safety of our children is not a political issue, it’s simply the right thing to do,” Bondi said. The National Rifle Association sued Florida over the law banning adults under 21 from buying guns, the lawsuit is currently pending in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. “Hopefully Congress will follow Florida’s lead and what Gov. Scott has been doing here in Florida and all of us working so well together,” Bondi told Stuart Varney of Fox News in March 2018.

President Trump’s first term was a mixed bag on gun rights. The former president often spoke out in favor of the Second Amendment, but issued alarming statements and executive orders. “Take the guns first, go through due process second” is about as unconstitutional a position an elected official can take, and Trump’s unconstitutional bump stock ban was struck down by the Supreme Court in June of this year.

Gun rights are thriving at the state level. Citizens of 29 states, over half of the American population can now carry a pistol concealed without a license from the government, but supporters of the Second Amendment are correct to be skeptical of the commitment to the right to keep and bear arms by Republican leaders at the federal level. The GOP scrubbed all Second Amendment protections from their official party platform at the Republican National Convention in July, and President Trump’s checkered past on gun rights, and his appointment of Pam Bondi, who herself has a less than stellar history on guns, leaves gun owners and supporters of the Second Amendment with more questions than answers.