In March 2024, Roger Stone sent a memo to U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump calling for a “new licensing program that would ensure our enemies can’t get guns by empowering the FBI and local law enforcement with the right to confiscate guns of anyone deemed to be an ‘enemy of the state.’”
In 2024 and 2025, viral posts on X and Facebook claimed to show a memo sent by Roger Stone to then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump in which he suggested ways to “confiscate” guns from “enemies of the state.” Stone, a longtime Trump ally, was pardoned by the president in 2020 after being indicted for lying to Congress about what he knew about Russian efforts to discredit then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections.
Dated in March 2024, the memo called for a “new licensing program that would ensure our enemies can’t get guns by empowering the FBI and local law enforcement with the right to confiscate guns of anyone deemed to be an ‘enemy of the state.'” The memo also stated, “We can decide the parameters that would determine what actually is an ‘enemy’ later, so the base won’t flip out.”
(Image via X)
We found no evidence or independent reporting showing that the above memorandum was authentic. Stone himself has repeatedly denied ever sending such a memo to Trump. We also found no instances in the Trump administration’s executive orders in which he planned to take guns from so-called “enemies of the state.” Instead, Trump’s latest executive order in 2025 sought to review gun regulations imposed by former U.S. President Joe Biden. As such, we rate this claim as false.
The “memo” circulated over several months in 2024 and into early 2025. Stone repeatedly denied writing such a post. On Feb. 26, 2025, he wrote on his verified X profile: “Attention. This forged and completely fraudulent memo is circulating yet again on X. My signature is no doubt copied in Photoshop from many of the fundraising letters I signed for my legal defense fund. I have never advocated for the suspension of anyone’s Second Amendment rights. Thank you.”
In June 2024, he wrote: “This “letter” pushed aggressively on X by bots — in which I allegedly propose to violate the Second Amendment rights of any citizen is a FRAUD — as in ” not real” #scam #smear #bullshit.”
In July 2024, he wrote: “This memo is a fraud! Clickbait bull****.”
In November 2024, Stone wrote on X, “This is a fraud. It’s a forgery. A total Fugazi. Like President Trump I am a strong supporter of the second amendment and gun owners rights.”
Per Trump’s own executive order, he does not plan to take guns away from so-called “enemies of the state.” Instead, he plans to review all of the previous administration’s actions around firearms and halt some of those policies. The Feb. 7, 2025, order stated:
This Executive Order will halt existing policies designed to curtail the clear right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.
The order directs the incoming Attorney General to immediately complete a specific review of all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, and other actions by the Biden Administration regarding firearms — listing several specific documents to be reviewed — and deliver a plan of action to the President to eliminate all infringements on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
In 2018, during his first term and after a mass shooting in Las Vegas, Trump banned bump stocks. However, by 2024, as he ran for president a second time, he recast himself as “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House” who “did nothing” to curb guns while in office.
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