By: Anthony Morelli
It appears that the jig is up for the ATF.
They have been waiting with bated breath to find out what Trump will do.
But now they have received alarming news from The New York Times about what is to come.
Donald Trump is a wild card on gun issues, and on a myriad of other things as well, and it can be very difficult to predict exactly what he is going to do.
Gun owners have learned the hard way that they can’t always rely on him making the right decision to preserve the Second Amendment.
But Trump has a big opportunity in his upcoming term as president to make things better for millions of gun owners all across America.
He simply has to do right by the people who voted for him and give them their freedoms back.
Part of that will mean doing something about the ATF, the agency that has been perhaps the most hostile towards the Second Amendment out of any branch of the government.
Now The New York Times is reporting that the ATF’s gun control efforts could be significantly rolled back during Trump’s upcoming term.
According to the Times, “Many federal agencies are bracing for the Trump era — but few are likely to face the powerful backlash that awaits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which pursued an aggressive gun control agenda under President Biden.
“The A.T.F., under its Biden-appointed director, Steven M. Dettelbach, has been more proactive on gun control than at any time in its recent history. It has pushed through rules to curb the proliferation of the untraceable homemade firearms known as ghost guns, clamped down on devices that make firearms deadlier and regulated unlicensed firearms sellers who operate at gun shows or online.”
Joe Biden’s presidency has been the most anti-gun in modern American history, which has left gun owners urgently hoping for a new president to take office and do something about it.
If this article is correct, the Trump administration will be quite a bit different, something that could send shivers down the spine of the ATF.
The article continues, “The A.T.F. faces a deeply uncertain future, and there is little doubt that difficult times lie ahead — perhaps in the form of even deeper funding cuts aimed at punishing the agency for the flurry of regulatory actions he undertook.
“Even before the election, congressional Republicans already succeeded in cutting the bureau’s budget. In the 2024 budget year, they inserted a $47 million cut to its modest $1.6 billion annual budget, at a time when other federal agencies were seeing increases to keep pace with inflation.”
The ATF is in big trouble, and it didn’t have to be this way. If they had simply laid low and left gun owners alone, the forces of political inertia would have likely allowed them to keep their funding.
But instead, they attacked gun owners, and they have drawn the disdain of Trump and other Republicans, which could cost them big-time.