Days after anti-gunners had fits about proposed changes to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by the Trump administration, NPR is reporting the reform effort includes “plans to loosen gun regulations and significantly reduce” the agency’s budget.
NPR is also facing loss of federal funding support.
The report says officials with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been working with ATF officials to make changes to an estimated 50 regulations “including making a background check for a firearm purchase valid for 60 days instead of 30.” Other proposed reforms include “allowing gun dealers to destroy records after 20 years, rather than keep them indefinitely,” the report said.
The report quotes Kris Brown, president of the Brady gun prohibition lobbying group, asserting, “The reality is that the ATF plays a critical role in ensuring that gun dealers can operate in a fully, legally compliant manner. We don’t want to take that sort of critical oversight role away from them because there is no one else out there.”
But the ATF is an agency which has been under fire for decades. Journalist Lee Williams, editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project, has published a series of articles critical of ATF practices.
Reportedly under consideration is a 25 percent cut to the ATF’s operating budget, and loss of “more than 500 investigators.”
It is detailed in the Justice Department’s FY 2026 Budget and Performance Summary.
“The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) budget is reduced by $112 million, refocusing DEA efforts toward fentanyl trafficking,” the report states. “This includes a reduction of 62 foreign offices to focus on countries primarily responsible for drug trafficking in the United States, elimination of state and local support for clandestine methamphetamine labs, and limits to personnel moves, travel, and training. DEA continues to evaluate all available options to reduce costs, identify efficiencies, and focus priorities in FY 2026 while combatting dangerous cartels and drug traffickers. Additionally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is being reduced by $468 million and consolidated within DEA.”
A few pages later in the document is this paragraph: “ATF is eliminated as a separate component, with its functions merged into the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). After absorbing select functions of ATF, DEA will remain as a single component that will address violent crime, drug enforcement, and crimes relating to firearms. This merger will lead to efficiencies in resources, case deconfliction, regulatory efforts, and reductions of duplicative functions and infrastructure.”
But the proposed consolidation is being opposed by several leading gun rights organizations. Liberty Park Press recently reported that the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, Second Amendment Law Center and the California Rifle & Pistol Association sent a letter to Attorney General Pamela Bondi expressing their opposition to the proposed merger.
“Because this merger would seem to be counterproductive to the President’s agenda and, in fact, almost certainly harmful to law-abiding gun owners, we urge you to consider abandoning this proposal and continue to operate ATF as a standalone agency of narrow purpose and limited resource, until such time as all unconstitutional federal gun laws are repealed and the ATF can be abolished,” the groups stated.
CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb has criticized ATF actions over the years and had this observation:
“The ATF has not been friendly to the Second Amendment or America’s law-abiding gun owners, especially over the past four years. The agency has an unsavory history which includes such debacles as Waco, Ruby Ridge and Operation Fast & Furious, and this proposal would open the door to more abusive behavior because the agency budget would increase and ATF would have access to DEA’s greater resources and staffing. As we state in the letter, the result would be a ‘super-entity of gun control enforcers’ which could be used by future anti-gun administrations ‘to target the Second Amendment community in unprecedented ways.’”
The Biden administration weaponized ATF against the firearms industry, establishing a “zero tolerance policy” toward firearms dealers for even the tiniest paperwork error. The Trump administration quickly reversed that policy.
Meanwhile, NPR has its own complaint against the Trump administration, which it is messaging to readers of NPR reports online:
