https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/us/politics/justice-dept-guns-atf-trump.html
Justice Dept. to Cut Two-Thirds of Inspectors Monitoring Gun Sales
The
move is part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and
downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
By Glenn Thrush
Reporting from Washington
The
Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor
federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the
government’s already crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell
guns to criminals, according to budget documents.
The move, part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, comes as the department considers merging
the A.T.F. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. It follows a
rollback of Biden-era regulations aimed at stemming the spread of deadly
homemade firearms, along with other gun control measures.
The
department plans to eliminate 541 of the estimated 800 investigators
responsible for determining whether federal dealers are following
federal law and regulations intended to keep guns away from traffickers,
straw purchasers, criminals and those found to have severe mental
illness, according to a budget summary quietly circulated last week.
Department
officials estimated the reductions would reduce “A.T.F.’s capacity to
regulate the firearms and explosives industries by approximately 40
percent” in the fiscal year starting in November — even though the staff
cuts represent two-thirds of the inspection work force. The cuts are
needed to meet the White House demand that A.T.F. cut nearly a third
from its budget of $1.6 billion.
News
of the plan came as a shock to a work force already reeling from months
of disruption. Several frontline agency staff members, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said the cuts would
lead to hundreds of layoffs and effectively end the A.T.F.’s role as a
serious regulator of gun sales, if they are not reversed by the White
House or Congress.
“These
are devastating cuts to law enforcement funding and would undermine
A.T.F.’s ability to keep communities safe from gun violence,” said John
Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit
advocacy group founded by the former mayor of New York Michael R.
Bloomberg. “This budget would be a win for unscrupulous gun dealers and a
terrible setback for A.T.F.’s state and local law enforcement
partners.”
The
inspection program is already woefully understaffed: A small percentage
of the 100,000 or so dealers, collectors and manufacturers monitored by
the A.T.F. are inspected in any given year — and some licensees can go
nearly a decade without facing routine regulatory scrutiny. The
inspections have, nonetheless, become a target of Republicans, who view
them as an intrusion into gun rights.
But
A.T.F. officials, law enforcement groups and gun control activists see
such routine monitoring as a fundamental safeguard against abuses that
have led some retail outlets to become sources for criminals and straw
purchasers paid to buy guns.
A spokesman for the Justice Department had no comment.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has already rolled back
a range of Biden-era gun control measures, including a crackdown on
federally licensed gun dealers who falsify business records and skip
customer background checks.
She
also directed the A.T.F. to review two other major policies enacted
under the Biden administration, with an eye toward scrapping both. One
is a ban on so-called pistol braces, which are used to convert handguns
into rifle-like weapons, and the second is a rule requiring background
checks on private gun sales.
The
bureau, responsible for enforcing gun laws and regulating firearms
dealers, enjoyed a brief revival during the Biden administration. It led
a four-year push to expand background checks on buyers, crack down on untraceable homemade weapons known as “ghost guns” and curtail the use of devices that convert standard weapons into machine guns.
Those days are long gone.
The
A.T.F., a division of the Justice Department, has been ravaged by the
departure of key career personnel and the diversion of dozens of agents
from core duties to immigration enforcement — leaving it rudderless, demoralized and leaderless.
In April, the A.T.F.’s roughly 10,000 employees were handed off from one caretaker, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, to another, Daniel Driscoll, the Army secretary.
Mr.
Driscoll had been told he was being given the assignment a few days
before, and was not happy with it, according to people familiar with the
situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss
the matter.
Glenn Thrush
covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written
about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails
and prisons.
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