I am a gun owner, aficionado, and rabid supporter of the 2nd Amendment. I’ve seen, during my lifetime, an attempt by the federal government to take away some or all of my God given rights and that bothers me.
As a citizen of the United States of America, I know that my rights come from God, and are only documented in that holiest of civilian documents, the Constitution. And I know that men who are not of good will, whose pursuit of power or wealth will try to take my rights if they believe doing so will move them along their personal track to success, exist.
One of the most often attacked rights is the right to keep and bear arms. It doesn’t matter what the season or happening, those on the left attempt to use that situation to justify taking away the 2nd Amendment guaranteed right to be armed.
Why is this? There are those who believe, I am one of them, that a disarmed population cannot resist the actions of a tyrannical government. When civilians own more guns than the military, and the civilian population contains more combat veterans than the military, government agents will think before they act. This is exactly the Founder’s intent in including the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
Still, those who would take away our guns continue to look for ways around the Constitution. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is one of those constructs. ATF was moved from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice in 2002. Previously ATF was an independent agency in the Treasury Department. Its responsibility expanded when the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed. The Gun Control Act of 1968 was a follow-on to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), which was passed in response to criminals using machine guns and sawed-off shotguns in the commission of crimes. As an aside, according to historical law enforcement reports, crimes involving handguns and standard shotguns far outnumbered those committed with machine guns or sawed-off shotguns. The NFA was a political solution to a problem that did not exist, passed solely to make citizens “feel better” without actually affecting crime rates.
The question then becomes “what do you propose to do about this?”
I propose the ATF ceases to exist. There is no need for it as currently designed, although many of its functions should be preserved. Following is my recommendation for dissolution of ATF:
ATF has responsibility for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Except for firearms, each of those functions was removed from another agency in 2002 when Homeland Security was formed and ATF was created as an organization underneath Homeland Security.
The alcohol and tobacco functions of ATF are tax collection and monitoring functions, and can be moved back to Treasury (the IRS specifically) where they were prior to 2002. Explosives were a mixed bag of responsibility, having tax, licensing, and regulation the responsibility of the Department of the Treasury and enforcement handled by the Department of Justice’s FBI.
That leaves firearms, and the ATF has multiple responsibilities there. There’s a law enforcement function, which, due to training issues and lack of effective leadership, is considered a sub-par organization attempting to mimic the FBI and failing miserably. There is also a regulatory function comprised of issuing Federal Firearms Licenses (FFL) and promulgating regulations concerning firearm legality.
All law enforcement resources of ATF are seconded to border security and like matters, so ATF does not at present have a functioning law enforcement function. The law enforcement function can and should be moved to the FBI, where it belongs.
Without law enforcement, ATF is just a regulatory agency, and it’s function can be moved to the Department of Commerce or some like agency that is engaged in regulation.
With Kash Patel and Dan Bongino at the top of the FBI, and Patel on top of BATFE, it’s possible all these things are already in motion.
It’s worth noting that the NFA has been challenged in court and in the past has been found Constitutional. As recently as 2008 and 2010 it was challenged in Heller and McDonald, which reinforced the individual’s right to own a firearm for self-defense, but did not affect the constitutionality of the NFA. Heller did establish the legality of “weapons in common use” as legal 
even in non-militia service. This decision (Heller) was reinforced and expanded by Bruen in 2022, which underscored that such regulations must align with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Not to pick at a nit, but prior to 1934, owning a sawed-off shotgun or a machine gun was legal, and the number of machine guns (legal) and sawed-off shotguns (also legal) in civilian hands in the US is estimated at several hundred thousand. More than enough to meet the common use standard in Heller and not prohibited historically as required in Bruen.
Further, the only other item that really concerns ATF is the suppressor, which ATF regularly attempts to define as not a firearm (and therefore not subject to their regulation, by the way), and so should not be of interest to ATF or whoever takes their place.
Reasonably, with machine guns and sawed-off shotguns (and short-barreled rifles as well) justifiable under Bruen and Heller, and suppressors not in their purview, it seems the administrative and regulative division of ATF no longer has a reason to exist.
Interesting if it was to completely go away.
Good riddance!
Continuity planning, civilian and military
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