As President-elect Donald Trump continues filling positions in his administration, leaders in the Second Amendment community are reportedly pushing for the appointment of a pro-gun director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The Washington Examiner is reporting that several gun rights groups have asked Trump to abolish Joe Biden’s White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which had Vice President Kamala Harris overseeing the project.
This mini-bureaucracy was created by the Biden-Harris administration in 2023 solely to push the administration’s gun prohibition agenda. It’s existence drew quick criticism from several organizations, and Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) declared in a news release, “Nowhere else, within the U.S. government, are taxpayers forced to fund efforts to denigrate their rights protected by the law. This office was established to appease the special-interest gun control lobby and donors.”
The Washington Examiner report noted that Trump is actually being “pressured to abolish or limit the authority of the ATF.”
Under Biden and Harris, the ATF was “weaponized” against gun owners and firearms retailers, say critics. The agency has long been considered “rogue” within the firearms community, with questionable activities and actions dating back decades, and outright scandals erupting including Operation Fast & Furious during the Barack Obama administration. Current ATF Director Steve Dettelbach once acknowledged he is not a “firearms expert” to the extent others might be during questioning on Capitol Hill almost two years ago. Newsweek tried to cover for him, but Republican Congressman Jim Jordan reported the remarks, which Newsweek said were out of context.
According to the Washington Examiner report, NSSF spokesman Mark Oliva said his organization “believes the ATF needs a course correction.”
“The next ATF director should serve the public by dedicating the agency’s resources to targeting, arresting, and bringing to justice those criminals who illegally traffic firearms and threaten community safety,” Oliva reportedly said.
There have been a few suggestions of possible candidates for the ATF job, since it is clear Trump intends to replace everyone Biden appointed to any job. And the incoming president is beholden to gunowners for turning out Nov. 5 and tilting the election in his favor.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, spoke to the Examiner, offering a caution to gun owners that replacing the people who run an agency, or even demolishing the agency, will not provide a solution to the real problem, which is restrictive—and possibly unconstitutional—gun control laws.
“The underlying laws and regulations will still be there and transferred to a bigger and more well-funded agency like the FBI with more manpower to enforce them. Be careful for what you wish for,” Gottlieb told the newspaper.
One thing Trump will be able to accomplish during his second term, which begins Jan. 20, is to once again start filling federal judicial vacancies with conservative, pro-Second Amendment judges. With the Senate under Republican control, Trump’s judicial nominees should have decent chances of confirmation.
