On February 4, 2025, Maine Senator Susan Collins voted to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general. Bondi's Justice Department ended the policy of revoking the licenses of gun dealers who willfully broke the law, settled a case to let rapid-fire trigger devices back on the market, and pulled most ATF agents into immigration work, and gun prosecutions fell in most federal districts.
On April 29, 2026, Collins voted to confirm Robert Cekada to run the ATF, and in October 2026 his agency stopped requiring registration of silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns. She also voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose CDC lost most of its violence prevention staff, and in August 2025 she voted against an amendment to count veterans' firearm suicides.
Susan Collins's Votes and Confirmations on Gun Enforcement
- Collins Voted to Confirm Pam Bondi, Whose Justice Department Loosened Enforcement Against Lawbreaking Gun Dealers. On February 4, 2025, Susan Collins voted to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general, and she was confirmed 54 to 46. In April 2025 Bondi's department ended the zero-tolerance policy for dealers who willfully break the law, including selling a gun without a background check or falsifying business records, although an estimate cited by The Trace finds that 5 percent of federally licensed gun sellers are responsible for 90 percent of recovered crime guns. In May 2025 the department settled a case to allow forced reset triggers, a device that enables semiautomatic rifles to fire faster than M16 machine guns. By September 2025 80 percent of the ATF's roughly 2,500 agents had been pulled into immigration task force work at some point, and in 2025 gun prosecutions fell more than 10 percent in 40 of the nation's 94 federal districts, Reuters found, as The Trace reported.
- Collins Voted to Confirm the ATF Director Whose Agency Stopped Registering Silencers and Short-Barreled Guns. On April 29, 2026, Susan Collins voted to confirm Robert Cekada as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and he was confirmed 59 to 39. After a federal judge in Texas ruled in August 2026 that the registration rules for these weapons had lost their constitutional basis, The Justice Department opted not to appeal the judge's decision, and on October 9, 2026 Cekada's ATF wrote that it will also no longer require such items to be registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer record. The registry helps federal ATF agents trace the chain of firearm ownership, CBS News reported, and Everytown's research arm says silencers make it difficult for bystanders to recognize that a gun has been fired.
- Collins Voted to Confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Whose CDC Lost Most of Its Violence Prevention Staff. On February 13, 2025, Susan Collins voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, and he was confirmed 52 to 48. In the April 2025 layoffs at Kennedy's department, a former director of the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention estimated that the unit lost about three-quarters of its staff, and The CDC and NIH canceled $20 million in gun violence research grants, The Trace reported, leaving less data on how and where people are shot.
- Collins Voted Against Counting Veterans' Firearm Suicides in August 2025. On August 1, 2025, Susan Collins voted against an amendment that would have required a quarterly report on veterans who would otherwise have been reported to the background check system and on the number of suicides by firearm that occurred in the previous quarter. It failed 44 to 51. The amendment was offered against a rider, later enacted, that bars the VA from using its funds to report a person who is deemed mentally incapacitated, mentally incompetent, or to be experiencing an extended loss of consciousness to the background check system without a judge's finding. In 2024 firearms were involved in 74.3% of Veteran suicide deaths, the VA reported.
What Weaker Gun Enforcement Under Susan Collins's Confirmations Means for Maine
- Gun deaths. Firearms killed 181 people in Maine in 2024, a rate of 11.9 per 100,000 residents, according to KFF's tally of CDC data.
- Veteran suicides. 54 Maine veterans died by suicide in 2024, a rate of 51.9 per 100,000 that ranked seventh among the states, according to the VA's 2026 suicide prevention report.
Frequently Asked Questions About Susan Collins on Guns
What is Susan Collins's record on guns under Trump?
Susan Collins voted to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose Justice Department ended zero tolerance for lawbreaking gun dealers and moved most ATF agents to immigration work, and ATF Director Robert Cekada, whose agency stopped registering silencers and short-barreled guns in October 2026. She voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose CDC cut its violence prevention staff, and against counting veterans' firearm suicides in August 2025.
What did the Justice Department under Pam Bondi, whom Susan Collins confirmed, do about people convicted of domestic violence owning guns?
Susan Collins voted to confirm Pam Bondi on February 4, 2025, and Bondi's department set up a process under which people who have served time for misdemeanor domestic violence offenses could apply 10 years after their sentence is up to get their gun rights back, The Trace reported.
Did Susan Collins vote to confirm the ATF director who ended silencer registration?
Yes. Susan Collins voted on April 29, 2026 to confirm Robert Cekada as ATF director, and in October 2026 his agency announced it would stop requiring registration of silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns outside the about 15 states with their own permitting laws.
Last updated: 2026-10-25