The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is undergoing a drastic shake-up, with 1,000 agents being reassigned—a move that gun owners across America are celebrating as a step in the right direction.
This follows the recent appointment of Robert Leider as the new pro-gun Chief Counsel, who replaced the previous anti-gun Chief Counsel, Pamela Hicks responsible for overseeing the agency’s unconstitutional rulemaking over the past several years.
While this marks a major reversal of the ATF’s decades-long war on gun owners, it is not enough. The ultimate goal should not be to reform the ATF—it should be to abolish it entirely.
A U-Turn at ATF
For years, ATF has been a rogue agency, enforcing unconstitutional gun control measures and expanding its authority without Congressional approval. Under the Biden administration, the ATF led the charge in implementing policies such as:
- The Pistol Brace Ban, targeting millions of law-abiding gun owners.
- The “Engaged in the Business” rule, forcing private sellers to register as firearms dealers.
- The so-called “Ghost Gun” rule, restricting the private assembly of firearms.
With Kash Patel as Acting Director and a new pro-Second Amendment Chief Counsel replacing the agency’s previous DEI hire, ATF is now being forced to scale back its unconstitutional overreach. Reassigning 1,000 agents is a significant move, signaling a major shift in priorities.
Gun Control Groups in Meltdown Mode
As expected, anti-gun groups like Giffords and Everytown for Gun Safety are furious over the decision to cut ATF agents. In a statement, Giffords falsely claimed that weakening ATF will somehow make Americans less safe and allow gun traffickers to flood the streets with firearms.
This decision would increase crime and hurt law enforcement.
The ATF is the only federal law enforcement agency stopping gun traffickers from flooding communities across the country with illegal guns. Weakening the ATF will make all us less safe.https://t.co/1crcAd7Z71
— GIFFORDS (@GIFFORDS_org) March 22, 2025
But the truth is that ATF has never been about stopping crime, it’s been about harassing gun owners, revoking FFLs over paperwork errors, and expanding gun control through backdoor rulemaking. If anti-gun politicians were serious about public safety, they would be prosecuting criminals, not disarming law-abiding Americans.
Abolish the ATF and Repeal the NFA
While cutting 1,000 agents is a positive step, it’s not enough. Congress must act now to eliminate ATF completely. That’s why gun owners across America are demanding passage of H.R. 221 to abolish the ATF and H.R. 335 to repeal the National Firearms Act.
Why repeal the NFA? Because even if ATF is abolished, gun control advocates could simply transfer its enforcement powers to another agency. Without eliminating the NFA, future administrations could revive the war on gun owners under a different three-letter agency.
The Fight is Far From Over
Gun owners should take this moment to celebrate the forced retreat of ATF, but they mustn’t get complacent. The anti-gun lobby is regrouping and they will attempt to weaponize other government agencies to continue their assault on the Second Amendment.
The solution? Shut it down completely.
Gun owners must continue to pressure Congress to pass H.R. 221 and H.R. 335, ensuring that the tyranny of ATF ends once and for all. Because the only good ATF is a defunded, dismantled, and nonexistent ATF.
Chris McNutt is president of Texas Gun Rights.
Wait! Is this correct or is this simply not keeping up with events?
Patel came out and said that CNN lied about 1,000 ATF being moved to the FBI. And the FBI has said there are no such plans to do so.
ATF Director Kash Patel Says CNN Lied About Reassigning ATF Agents > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeiVe9HbExw
which also means Giffords was lying about it too (yeah, I know, Giffords lying is an expected thing). CNN originally broke the story, but it turns out they lied too (yeah, I know, left wing media lying is something we have come to expect).
So if CNN is lying, then this forum is lying as well because they are reporting the same news story:
“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is undergoing a drastic shake-up, with 1,000 agents being reassigned“
Maybe someone should ask the author of the news article above, Chris McNutt, where he obtained his information.
Actually, it looks as if the original number was going to be “as many as 1000” but then once there was an outcry, they backed off of that number:
“After publication of this story and resulting pushback including from Republican allies, FBI officials began to back off aspects of their plan, according to a US official familiar with the matter.
An ATF spokeswoman disputed that the agents were being reassigned to the FBI and said in a statement Saturday that as a part of the ATF and FBI’s plans to address issues at the southern border, “the ATF will temporarily assign approximately 150 agents from existing field offices to other ATF field offices, where they will continue serving as ATF agents to support the surge initiative.”
Of course, it’s hard to say what’s going on with this administration.
For instance, after holding 800 hours of hearings on 4 Americans killed in Benghazi, Donald Trump now says nobody’s even told him about the 4 missing soldiers in Lithuania.
Lots of words to say nothing of value.
It seems the reports of ATF agents being moved is both true and false:
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/report-atf-is-transferring-hundreds-of-agents-to-fbi-44820157
There are some ATF agents being moved to FBI temporarily as part of task-forces for illegal criminal alien roundup (no, they will not become FBI agents), and about 150 being distributed out to other ATF field offices, maybe a total of 500 in all being moved around…. but its not the 1,000 claimed by CNN.
Unless something has changed between Patel debunking CNN a couple of days ago and now…. then the 1,000 is not correct. Everything else in MSM right now cites a ‘according to CNN” thing also and that’s just in the last couple of days, so they are regurgitating what CNN said. But Patel has debunked two days ago. So maybe its a case of an article being written before the debunk and just now getting published.
But CNN claimed to have first hand knowledge with a typical left-wing media mysterious ‘according to people briefed on the plan’, about this 1,000. I had my doubts about that, its a typical thing for the left-wing media to say things like ‘sources say’ type of stuff to bolster their claims and it usually turns out to be a false claim after all – and now Patel has come right out saying CNN lied about the 1,000. And I doubt that ‘people briefed on the plan’ would not be loyal people, I mean, a director doesn’t just brief everyone on such a major plan except the ones who they can trust to execute the plan without blabbering about it, so I doubt that CNN actually spoke to ‘people briefed on the plan’. It was probably some lingering left winger trying to stir up trouble and contacted CNN saying they had been ‘briefed’ on such a plan and ya know the left wing media is eager to dig up any dirt they can even if they need to make it up.
“Lots of words to say nothing of value.“
“Lots of words to say nothing of value.“
Then quit with your trolling posting and those words of yours “to say nothing of value” won’t show up
The left can’t meme.