Trump Must Overturn American Samoa's Ruling That the Second Amendment Doesn't Apply There
Source: "American Samoa gun ban challenges Second Amendment, Trump urged to act | Fox News." September 30, 2026. www.foxnews.com
The Gist
A court in American Samoa ruled that the Second Amendment doesn't apply there because it's a special kind of U.S. territory, and this let the territory ban most guns. The author argues that President Trump and his Interior Secretary have the legal power to fire the judges who made this ruling and declare that gun rights apply there just like everywhere else in the U.S., and they should act immediately since no normal lawsuit can fix this.
Conclusion
President Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum must immediately reverse the High Court of American Samoa's ruling that the Second Amendment does not apply in the territory, including by firing the current justices and issuing an executive order affirming the amendment's applicability.
Premises
- The High Court of American Samoa ruled that because American Samoa is an unincorporated territory, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms does not apply there, allowing a near-total gun ban to take effect.
- The Second Amendment is a foundational constitutional right that the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed applies with full force even in reluctant jurisdictions like Hawaii (Wolford v. Lopez).
- Unlike other U.S. territories, American Samoa has no federal court, so normal judicial recourse (lawsuits in federal court) is unavailable to challenge this ruling.
- Federal law (48 U.S.C. § 1661) vests the President with civil, military, and judicial control over American Samoa, and this authority was delegated to the Secretary of the Interior by a 1951 executive order.
- The territorial constitution empowers the Secretary of the Interior to appoint High Court justices, who serve no life tenure and can be removed without cause and without Senate confirmation.
- Federal courts have upheld the President's authority to overrule decisions of the American Samoa High Court in several cases, even though the Supreme Court has not squarely addressed the question.
- If a territorial court declared the First Amendment inapplicable, permitting imprisonment of government critics, the public would rightly be outraged; the Second Amendment deserves the same protection since it is equally foundational.
Assumptions
- The Second Amendment, as part of the U.S. Constitution, should apply uniformly across all territories under U.S. sovereignty, regardless of incorporation status.
- Executive removal and replacement of territorial judges is an appropriate and legitimate remedy for a judicial ruling the administration disagrees with, rather than an improper political intervention in judicial independence.
- The administration has both the legal authority and the political will to act, and doing so would not constitute an abuse of executive power over the judiciary.
- Analogies between the First and Second Amendment in terms of constitutional 'foundational' status are valid and equally applicable to territorial governance.
- The absence of a federal court in American Samoa is a procedural gap justifying direct executive intervention rather than legislative or judicial reform.