Reps. Tom Tiffany and Harriet Hageman have introduced legislation that would finally rein in the Equal Access to Justice Act’s (EAJA) role as a blank-check subsidy for anti-gun litigation. For years, activist groups have filed serial lawsuits against the ATF and other agencies, lost on the merits, and then turned around to bill taxpayers for their attorneys’ fees under EAJA’s “prevailing party” loophole. The new bill would close that loophole by requiring courts to consider whether a plaintiff’s overall litigation record shows a pattern of abusive filings before awarding fees, effectively ending the practice of using public money to bankroll endless challenges to lawful gun regulations.

The measure arrives at a critical moment. With the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision still reshaping Second Amendment jurisprudence, anti-gun organizations are racing to file new suits in friendly districts, hoping to generate precedent before the Court can clarify the historical-tradition test. By forcing these groups to internalize their own legal costs when they lose, the Tiffany-Hageman bill would shift the incentive structure away from lawfare and toward genuine policy debate. That shift matters for everyday gun owners: every dollar currently spent reimbursing failed lawsuits is a dollar that could have gone toward range construction, youth safety programs, or simply stayed in taxpayers’ pockets.

If enacted, the legislation would also send a broader signal that Congress is willing to police the administrative state’s habit of outsourcing enforcement to private litigants. For the 2A community, this is more than a procedural tweak; it is a recognition that the right to keep and bear arms is too important to be litigated into submission by organizations that never have to answer to voters or balance a budget.