What DOGE Should Do To The ATF
(Gage Skidmore via Flickr)
By Frank Miniter. Feb 27, 2025
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If Joe Biden had gotten his way, the firearms manufacturers he called "the enemy" would have been reduced to only serving the government, gun stores would have been regulated into extinction and the "Necessary and Proper Clause" in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution would have been expanded (or overlooked) to give the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) the power to rewrite gun-control laws.
These attempts to use the federal bureaucracy against we the people are out of step with our national character, are unconstitutional and are wildly counterproductive. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a presidential advisory commission announced by President Donald Trump (R), should put the ATF on its long list of out-of-control bureaucracies that need to be trimmed and taken out of politics.
Here are some things that Elon Musk, DOGE's chief advisor to the president, could recommend in order to refocus the ATF on its actual mission.
First, they could advise President Trump to sign an executive action stating that the ATF cannot attempt to rewrite gun-control law. The U.S. Constitution empowers Congress with writing the law. The courts then are supposed to keep the executive, legislative and all of the government's agencies within the bounds of the law—beginning with the constraints stipulated by the Constitution. Doing this would prevent the ATF from wasting its time and resources on things it does not have the authority to do.
All this first requirement would actually do is compel the ATF to follow its congressionally chartered mission. The ATF became a separate component within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) pursuant to Title XI of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. According to the DOJ: "The mission of the ATF is to conduct investigations utilizing their unique expertise, partnerships, and intelligence to enhance public safety by enforcing the laws and regulations and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America."
Next, in such an executive action, DOGE could advise the president to restrict the ATF to treat the lawfully armed public like the law-abiding citizens they are. The Biden administration treated lawfully armed citizens—people who wish to own guns and perhaps to carry concealed for self-defense purposes—as if they are a problem in society. This potentially turns the public against law enforcement, which is extremely counterproductive and thereby wastes government resources.
ATF agents have long worked closely with the owners and employees at Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL). Gun-store personnel can and do alert authorities when they witness or suspect criminal behavior. These relationships have been strained under the Biden administration's ATF, as ATF officials have been using things like minor paperwork errors to revoke gun-dealer licenses. The Biden administration also blamed gun stores for being responsible for rising crime rates, even though the ATF's own statistics shows this not to be the case; indeed, if "crime guns" are being traced back to a particular store, then it is the ATF's job to investigate and the DOJ's job to prosecute anyone it finds breaking the law.
At the same time, they could recommend that the ATF National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W. Va., follow the law and ensure records from out-of-business dealers are not used to create a registry of gun owners.
To correct specific instances of ATF exceeding its authority, DOGE could advise the president to revoke the "frame or receiver," "engaged in the business" and "arm-brace" rules. These are misguided and overreaching attempts to criminalize otherwise law-abiding citizens. And DOGE could advise the administration to end the ATF-imposed ban on the import of semi-automatic long guns.
Outside the ATF, DOGE could recommend disbanding the White House "Office of Gun Violence Prevention;" they could dismantle the Department of Justice's "red-flag" law clearinghouse; they could recommend ending government funding of bogus gun-control advocacy posing as "research;" and they could recommend revoking the Biden administration's export licensing crackdown on American gun companies through the U.S. Commerce Department.
No doubt, as the ATF and other federal agencies were used by the Biden administration politically, there is plenty of more waste and political misdirection that can be cut from this and other agencies, but just these few changes—combined with a director who appreciates the ATF's actual mission—could make the agency and federal law-enforcement agencies more efficient. By being more efficient, they should do a better job of catching actual criminals.
