Democrats are in full meltdown mode over the Trump administration’s ouster of Gail Slater, the DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, and it’s a spectacle worth watching for anyone who values the Second Amendment. Slater, a career antitrust enforcer with a track record of aggressive scrutiny on Big Tech mergers and monopolistic practices, resigned amid what critics call a purge of deep-state holdovers. Prominent Dems like Sen. Amy Klobuchar are wailing that this leaves the antitrust division rudderless, but let’s cut through the partisan fog: Slater’s tenure was a double-edged sword. While she greenlit probes into Google and Amazon—moves even conservatives cheered—her office under Biden had its fingers all over gun industry pressures, including whispers of antitrust angles on firearm manufacturers consolidating to fend off regulatory onslaughts.
Dig deeper, and the 2A implications snap into focus. The antitrust division isn’t just about tech titans; it’s a stealth weapon for ideologues targeting gun industry collusion. Remember the ATF’s ghost gun crusade or Biden’s executive orders hammering manufacturers? Slater’s team eyed vertical integration in firearms—think Remington and Remington Arms merging under new ownership—as potential antitrust violations, a tactic to kneecap consolidation that bolsters economies of scale against sky-high compliance costs from regs like pistol brace bans. Her exit? A massive win for 2A. Trump’s DOJ can now pivot to real threats: probing leftist nonprofits colluding with Big Tech to censor pro-gun voices or suppress 2A advocacy on platforms like Meta and X. No more antitrust harassment distracting from innovation in suppressors, optics, or next-gen ammo.
The bigger picture is Trump reclaiming the DOJ from activist bureaucrats who weaponize law against the Constitution. For the 2A community, this means breathing room to rebuild supply chains shattered by four years of harassment, potentially faster mergers to compete globally, and antitrust muscle turned outward against the real monopolists: media echo chambers and regulatory capture artists. Democrats’ lament? Music to our ears—it’s the sound of the swamp draining, one antitrust hawk at a time. Stay vigilant; this is just round one.
