The Trump administration is proposing budget cuts to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, but many gun owners and Second Amendment advocates would prefer to see the agency shut down altogether.
Writing at the Washington Examiner, howerver, FPC Action Foundation President and CEO Cody J. Wisniewski argues that efforts like the Abolish the ATF Act, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, don’t address the real issue: the laws the ATF is tasked with enforcing, not just the agency itself.
It’s tempting to believe that abolishing the ATF would end this abuse. But unless you dismantle the underlying policies that give rise to its enforcement authority, those powers won’t disappear — they’ll just move. And that would almost certainly make the situation worse.
For example, one such contender for taking over the role of the ATF is the FBI. But as history shows, the FBI is arguably more effective than the ATF at violating individual rights — just look at its latest “mistaken” raid that was argued in a case before the Supreme Court in April. And the FBI has an astronomical budget at its disposal — about 10 times the ATF’s, at $11.8 billion to $1.8 billion. Another contender for the role, the DHS, commands a budget of $89.3 billion and has its own lurid past with gun rights.
Eliminating the ATF without first repealing the laws and regulations it enforces would just make gun control more powerful and more entrenched within larger and better-funded agencies throughout the executive branch.
That’s why the goal isn’t, and can’t be, merely to eliminate the ATF. No, the real goal must be to put an end to the underlying gun control laws and regulations themselves so no agency can enforce them against us.
Wisniewski added that “abolishing the ATF without repealing the laws and regulations it enforces isn’t solving the problem — it’s simply giving it a new uniform,” which is true.
Getting rid of the ATF would be a big symbolic victory, to be sure, but so long as the statutes found in the Gun Control Act, National Firearms Act, and even the Firearms Owners Protection Act that infringe on our Second Amendment rights remain in place then the threat still remains.
As we’ve seen with the current fight over suppressors in the House GOP budget, there doesn’t appear to be much of an appetite among Republican congresscritters to actually try to repeal the language of the NFA or GCA. Heck, even the “compromise” that zeroes out the $200 tax on transferring suppressors isn’t guaranteed to survive the reconciliation process.
So how do we change that? We can primary current members of Congress who aren’t willing to take a hardline approach to protecting our Second Amendment rights, but that alone won’t be enough. We also have to educate folks on these issues, whether on Capitol Hill or in the virtual town square. As Wisniewski writes, “can people freely exercise their right to keep and bear arms without fear of shifting regulatory sands or politically motivated enforcement?”
The answer, for the moment anyway, is “no.” Changing that will take more than one election cycle or even eradicating one federal agency. It’s going to take a multi-pronged approach that includes litigation, lobbying, grassroots activism, and a sustained campaign to educate both the general public and our political class on the fundamental importance of protecting this civil right.
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