Could President Trump help end ATF?

President Donald J. Trump’s election victory was made possible by millions of gun owners who are still angry about the treatment they had received from former President Joe Biden and his anti-gun ilk.

Biden and whoever was actually calling the shots targeted legitimate gun owners and gun dealers like it was cool — as though it was a game. Biden even allowed these illegitimate forces to establish an anti-gun office right inside his White House. They met regularly with senior members of the anti-gun industry.

This civil-rights abuse was totally ignored by the mainstream media because the “journalists” themselves were all equally anti-gun and totally on board with Team Biden.

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The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has a long and blood-soaked history. In addition to the more than 80 lives lost at Waco — which includes 20 children — a Deputy U.S. Marshal and Randy Weaver’s wife and son were killed during ATF’s Ruby Ridge fiasco. The ATF’s “Fast and Furious” scheme resulted in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and hundreds of Mexican nationals, who were killed by the weapons ATF allowed to end up in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. The ATF has never fully addressed or apologized for these needless deaths that its agents caused.

Nowadays, there are scores of examples of ATF crews laughing and joking with each other as they tear apart the homes of law-abiding folks who had done nothing wrong. The latest was Mark “Choppa” Manley, who along with his wife and children is lucky to have survived an early-morning ATF search warrant that found nothing wrong. All of Manly’s firearms were legal and complied with both state and federal laws.

Thankfully, Manley recognized that armed ATF agents were taking tactical positions outside his home and put down his handgun right before they beat down his front door, threw two flashbang grenades, and stormed inside.

Bryan Malinowski never had that opportunity. The Arkansas airport director assumed that criminals had entered his home during the early-morning hours of March 19, 2024. Malinowski grabbed a pistol and fired several rounds. ATF shot and killed the 53-year-old, who had absolutely zero prior criminal history.

For decades, the gun community has talked about dumping the ATF, but the agency still exists, and its unlawful and deadly actions continue to this day. Under Biden, the agency actually became much worse.

Their deadly and loathsome raids add further proof that the ATF cannot be trusted. It has become more dangerous than the criminals it allegedly tries to target. Thankfully, Congress has a bill in the works to dump the agency. Reps. Eric Burlison (R-Missouri) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) recently introduced H.R. 221, legislation that is simple and succinct: “The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is hereby abolished.”

According to its FY2022 budget, the ATF had about 5,000 employees, and more than half were armed special agents. The rest were industry operations investigators — who make life hell for gun shop owners — and other clerical and professional staff. They operated on a budget of $1.5 billion taxpayer dollars.

Years ago, there were ATF agents who supported guns and our gun rights — older agents who didn’t let their administrators push them into breaking the law. But after four years of Biden and his chosen joke of an ATF director, these agents are mostly gone, having been replaced by younger anti-gun bureaucrats.

If President Trump truly wants to take historic action, he will help end the ATF immediately, before another American is needlessly shot and killed, which is almost guaranteed to happen.

Lee Williams is chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation's Investigative Journalism Project. Republished with permission.