In recent years, the 53 year-old agency became a thorn in the side of Second Amendment advocates and gun-lovers, with oppressive and restrictive regulations that countered the very protections America’s Founders codified in the Bill of Rights.
The Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have announced plans to repeal or revise more than 30 federal gun regulations, completing a 50-year pendulum swing back to the Second Amendment’s original, resulting in praise from one of the country’s longest-standing gun-rights advocates.
“This is why America elected Donald Trump. Freedom. ATF has no business making up rules, that’s what Congress does. Blanch, Dhillon, and Cekada are setting the right course,” NRA Board Member and retired Army Lt. Col. Willes K. Lee told Just The News after the DOJ and ATF made the announcement last week.
The shift is not just another regulatory rollback, its a culminating chapter in a half-century arc that began with the ATF’s transformation from a Treasury tax-enforcement bureau (pre-1972, when it was still mostly whiskey and tobacco-focused) into the aggressive regulatory federal agency it became after the 1968 Gun Control Act and especially after moved from within the Treasury Department to the Justice Department after the 9-11 terror attacks.
Among the new proposed changes is one to scrap a 2024 Biden White House rule that expanded background check requirements for gun sales at shows and other non-store venues.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche described the package as “the most comprehensive regulatory overhaul in the history” of the ATF saying it would cut red tape and restore clarity for law-abiding gun owners without weakening enforcement.
For too long, regulations were written without any real understanding of how firearms businesses operate, how lawful gun owners handle their firearms, or what truly improves public safety,” Blanche also said.
Gun control activists have criticized the moves as potentially dangerous.
Our local and state governments have laws and standards for noise coming from trucks, car, motorcycles, etc. However ATF requires someone to have to fingers printed, background check, $200 tax stamp, plus other submissions to legally own a suppressor / silencer for you firearm. How does this make sense ?