Who’s Ready for an ATF/DEA Combo Agency?

It’s not exactly the news that gun owners and Second Amendment advocates have been waiting for, but according to the Associated Press there could be a major shakeup at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives along with the Drug Enforcement Agency.

The AP purportedly got its hands on a memo discussing an overhaul of the Justice Department and several agencies under its purview, including lumping the DEA and ATF into a single agency. 

The memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche seeks feedback on a reorganization plan that would combine the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into a single agency “to achieve efficiencies in resources, case deconfliction, and regulatory efforts.”

It’s part of a broader push by the Trump administration to shrink and reshape the federal government that has already led to a slew of legal challenges. President Donald Trump has directed agencies to develop plans for eliminating employee positions and consolidating programs.

Perhaps the most sweeping part of the Justice Department’s plan is a push to merge the DEA and ATF, which often work together along with the FBI but are both led by separate directors and are tasked with distinctly different missions. The memo included no details about how the two agencies would be combined, or whether some of the agents would be eliminated.

Without any specifics there’s not much use in speculating about what that revamp would mean in terms of reining in the ATF’s abuses. What’s really noteworthy about the memo obtained by the Associated Press (at least to me) is that it’s yet another action by the Trump administration that obliquely deals with gun regulations without actually getting around to repealing any of the rules that Joe Biden enacted during his time in office. 

Earlier today my colleague Tom Knighton noted the frustration in some quarters of the 2A community over the slow pace of advancing Second Amendment issues in the first few months of Trump’s second term. Yes, we’ve seen some positive steps, including Trump’s executive order to Attorney General Pam Bondi directing her to evaluate any Biden-issued regulation impacting our right to keep and bear arms and the appointment of Second Amendment scholar Robert Leider as the ATF’s new lead counsel. But we’re also nearly three months in to Trump’s second term, and we have yet to see any of the rules adopted by the ATF under Biden’s watch start to be repealed. You’d think after the Supreme Court upheld the ATF rule treating unfinished frames and receivers as completed firearms the administration would have swiftly moved to start the process of repealing that particular provision at least, but we’ve seen no sign of movement in that direction since the Court’s announcement on Wednesday. 

It may very well be the case that combining the ATF and DEA is the right thing to do from a cost-savings perspective, but this isn’t the reform that Second Amendment activists are looking for. The new agency would still be in charge of enforcing federal gun laws and regulations, which makes it all the more important to remove those policies put in place under Biden that are impacting our 2A rights every day they’re enforced. I have no idea if this plan is a good or bad move given the lack of detail, but I do know that it’s not even close to the top priorities of 2A advocates when it comes to the ATF and its future.