Trump Hosts 100 Hunters at the White House and Tears Up Biden’s Sportsmen Rules

Joe Biden's Interior Department pushed to ban the traditional ammunition hunters have used for generations.

That fight ended on September 17 inside a packed White House Rose Garden.

President Trump signed two orders in front of a hundred hunters and gutted Biden's rules on the spot.

Ninety Two Million Acres of Refuge Land Reopens to Hunters

Trump welcomed hunters, anglers, and outdoor industry leaders from Bass Pro Shops, the National Rifle Association, Ducks Unlimited, Safari Club International, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum stood alongside him as he signed "Reinvigorating America's Hunting Heritage."

The order flips the federal government's entire approach to public land.

For years, bureaucrats treated national wildlife refuges as closed unless Washington said otherwise.

Trump's order reverses that logic entirely and declares roughly 92 million acres across 32 states open unless there's an actual reason to shut hunters out.

Fourteen refuges that blocked hunters for years are opening for the first time.

Officials added 1,488 new species-and-location hunting opportunities on top of that.

The order also protects traditional lead ammunition and fishing tackle from federal bans, forcing regulators to prove actual harm instead of banning gear on a bureaucrat's hunch.

NSSF President Joe Bartozzi put it plainly.

"Today's Executive Order by President Trump demonstrates that this administration stands with America's sportsmen and women," Bartozzi said.

Trump also pushed states to scrap old Sunday hunting bans, some of them left over from blue laws written before television existed.

Charter Captains Get Relief From Biden Era Speed Limits and Mail Surveys

The second order, "Restores American Saltwater Angling and Recreation," targets the maze Biden's agencies built around ocean fishing.

Charter boat captains had to renew federal permits constantly under the old system.

Trump's order moves them to multi-year permits instead.

Biden's Commerce Department made anglers track catches through mail-in paper surveys, a system built for a world before smartphones existed.

That gets replaced with mobile reporting.

The order also targets the 10 mph boating speed restrictions Biden's agencies imposed along stretches of coastline in the name of protecting marine mammals.

Trump's order eases those limits and opens more coastal water to recreational anglers.

It launches a rebuilding push for depleted stocks like Atlantic striped bass, and it directs agencies to study converting old offshore oil platforms into artificial reefs.

America's outdoor recreation industry generates more than 1.2 trillion dollars a year and supports over 5 million jobs, and Trump made clear at the dinner that number is about to grow, not shrink.

The Left Keeps Losing the Same Fight and Never Learns

This is not the first time Washington tried to take lead ammunition away from hunters, and it will not be the last.

Barack Obama's Interior Department rushed through a lead ammo phase-out on its way out the door in January 2017.

Ryan Zinke killed it his first day on the job, riding to the Interior Department on horseback to sign the reversal.

Nine years later, Democrats tried the exact same move under Biden, and Republicans handed it right back to sportsmen again.

That pattern tells you everything about who actually treats hunters and anglers as citizens instead of a problem to manage.

The "open until closed" standard Trump just signed makes it structurally harder for the next Democrat administration to quietly lock refuges again, because now the burden falls on bureaucrats to justify a closure instead of hunters having to justify access.

Ducks Unlimited and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation didn't show up to that Rose Garden dinner by accident.

They know which administration actually delivers for the guys who fund conservation through license fees and excise taxes, and it isn't the one that just left office.

Sources:

• Bob Hoge, "Trump Takes the Wrecking Ball to Biden's Punishing Regulations on Boaters, Hunters and Fishermen," RedState, September 18, 2026.
• "America's hunters get an exclusive seat at Trump's White House table as he takes aim at Biden-era rules," Fox News, September 17, 2026.
• "NSSF Hails White House 'Reinvigorating America's Hunting Heritage' Executive Order," NSSF, September 2026.
• "New Interior Secretary Zinke reverses last-minute Obama lead-ammunition ban," Fox News, March 2, 2017.
• "A New Era of Access for Hunters: Trump DOI Expands Opportunities in Historic Move," NRA-ILA, August 31, 2026.