Congress Wants To Keep Agency Despised By Gun Lovers Flush With Cash

Congress is set to keep funding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) at levels similar to those the agency received during the Biden administration, according to the text of a government funding bill it is considering.

The ATF, a federal agency long criticized by pro-Second Amendment groups, is expected to receive just under $1.6 billion in the bill — roughly similar to the amount the agency received in Fiscal Year 2023, during former President Joe Biden’s administration. Prominent pro-gun control Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen also touted that Trump’s proposal to cut ATF’s budget and merge it with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had not made it into the House GOP leadership-backed legislation in a Monday press release. (RELATED: Schumer Rushes To Block Trump Admin’s Success In Venezuela, Despite Previously Urging Regime Change)

“The bill rejects President Trump’s proposal to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) into the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and to substantially reduce resources for both, gutting the main federal law enforcement agencies charged with enforcing our nation’s gun and drug laws and keeping people safe,” Van Hollen claimed.

🚨BREAKING: This morning’s released House Budget bill rubberstamps Biden-era level funding for the ATF, $1.6 BILLION.

This move completely ignores President Trump’s proposed 25% cut!

We must defund the ATF without compromise. pic.twitter.com/EcqI4v7Fbg

— National Association for Gun Rights (@gunrights) January 5, 2026

The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) has criticized the version of the legislation moving through Congress, taking aim primarily at Republicans, who hold majorities in the House and Senate. Pro-Second Amendment organizations and gun owners have long sought drastic reforms and cuts to ATF over regulations and allegations of past abuses and harassment.

“It’s infuriating to see appropriators flatly reject President Trump’s bold, commonsense plan to dramatically slash ATF funding; a long-overdue reform that would have finally put a dent in a rogue agency after decades of relentlessly trampling Second Amendment rights,” Taylor Rhodes, director of communications for NAGR, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Instead, Congress kicked the can down the road, preserving the bloated status quo and stripping out the hard-fought pro-2A protections that gun owners demanded and deserved.”

“President Trump rightly called for a sweeping $400 million cut to the ATF, but Congress settled for a $40 million reduction—an insult to gun owners who are tired of being targeted by an unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy,” Gun Owners of America (GOA) Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston said in a statement to the DCNF. “This cut does almost nothing to rein in an agency that has spent years harassing law-abiding Americans while trampling on the Second Amendment.”

“Gun Owners of America will not stop fighting until the ATF is abolished and the constitutional rights it has eroded are fully restored,” Johnston continued. “That said, we are encouraged that Congress listened to our warnings and flatly rejected the Trump administration’s reckless proposal to merge the ATF with the DEA—a dangerous consolidation of federal power that would have only expanded abuse, not accountability.”

Republican Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde listed multiple provisions that he accused budget negotiators of “surrendering” in the final language, including defunding registration for National Firearms Act items whose taxes were cut to zero in the reconciliation bill Trump signed in July, blocking the use of funds for several regulations imposed during the Biden administration and slashing ATF’s budget by 25%.

“These critical Second Amendment protections were SURRENDERED during negotiations. I offered several amendments to continue fighting for these pro-2A provisions,” Clyde posted on X. “NONE were made in order — meaning they won’t receive a vote on the House floor.”

The Trump administration proposed merging ATF with DEA in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Fiscal Year 2026 budget request, an idea that gun rights organizations widely blasted. The administration has also come under fire from Second Amendment advocates for defending registration provisions after pro-gun groups sued to invalidate them, citing the tax reduction — even after establishing a Second Amendment office within the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. ATF and DEA are both agencies of the DOJ.

As a member of the CJS Appropriations Subcommittee, I fought to include pro-2A cuts and policy riders in the FY26 CJS appropriations bill.

These include:

DEFUNDING ATF’s illegal gun registry
DEFUNDING Pistol Brace Rule
DEFUNDING Engaged in the Business Rule
DEFUNDING Frame &…

— Rep. Andrew Clyde (@Rep_Clyde) January 8, 2026

“A superagency of gun control enforcers would undoubtedly be weaponized against the 2A rights of the People,” GOA posted on X on June 23, 2025. “This MUST be stopped!” (RELATED: Alan Dershowitz Explains Why Supreme Court Ended Up Upholding Biden’s ‘Ghost Gun’ Crackdown)

The ATF came under fire after a December 2010 shootout in which Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed by a firearm that was later determined to have been allowed to reach a Mexican cartel in a botched sting operation codenamed “Operation Fast and Furious.”

The National Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the DCNF.

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