By: Anthony Morelli
Donald Trump is chipping away at the ATF.
The agency is going to look very different than it did before.
And ATF agents are not going to be happy with what he just did.
It is reasonable to assume that people who decide to join the ATF are disproportionately likely to have views about guns and gun owners that are not particularly friendly.
To be sure, some people might simply join the agency because they need a job, but the fact that the agency’s mission is so anti-gun surely attracts people who hold those types of views.
Assuming that’s the case, ATF agents who dislike guns are going to be very unhappy to find out about the decision Donald Trump just made in regards to the agency’s policy.
Trump has reversed Joe Biden’s “zero tolerance” policy in regards to gun dealers, which will force the ATF to scale back their aggression in pursuing dealers who they think have made mistakes.
These mistakes may often be minor errors, and now that Trump is in charge, the ATF can no longer use those minor errors as an excuse to bully them.
According to The Truth About Guns, “The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced on April 7th that the agency is repealing a controversial Federal Firearms Administrative Action Policy known to dealers as the Zero Tolerance Policy.
“This Biden administration measure was introduced to target firearms dealers over minor errors in documentation, creating an environment of fear and uncertainty for Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL) across the country.”
It’s very easy to make minor errors in documentation, even if someone is trying to comply with the law, and this can easily lead to innocent people getting swept up.
Trump is trying to calm this climate of fear that has been created by these rules, which is why he is getting rid of this ill-conceived policy.
The article continues, “While this affects FFLs directly, it seems repealing the Zero Tolerance Policy may just be at the top of the list, as Attorney General Pam Bondi and Acting ATF and FBI Director Kash Patel are also said to be formalizing reviews of the ‘Stabilizing Brace Rule’ and the ‘Engaged in the Business Rule,’ which targets citizens selling personal firearms in private transactions.”
If this is indeed true, then gun owners have much more to look forward to in the future beyond just the repeal of this Biden-era policy.
Bondi and Patel may have even more up their sleeve that will thrill gun owners and make the anti-gun lobby very upset.
Gun policy is apparently going to look a lot different under Donald Trump than under the very extreme anti-gun administration of Joe Biden that just exited the White House a few months ago.
Trump has finally taken some real concrete action that gun owners can be excited about, and it sounds like there could be more to come if Bondi and Patel repeal even more anti-gun rules.