President Donald Trump’s election victory was made possible by millions of gun owners who are still angry about the treatment they received from Joe Biden and his antigun ilk in the ATF.
Biden and whoever was actually calling the shots targeted legitimate gun owners and gun dealers like it was cool – like it was a game. Biden even allowed these illegitimate forces to establish an antigun office right inside his White House. They met regularly with senior members of the antigun industry.
This civil rights abuse was totally ignored by the mainstream media because the “journalists” themselves were all antigun and totally on board with Team Biden.
The 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 walk straight into 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 law.
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 got much worse.
Their deadly and loathsome raids add further proof that the ATF can never be trusted again. 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. Representatives Eric Burlison (R-MO-07) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO-04) 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 around 5,000 employees, a little 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. They were replaced by younger antigun 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 guaranteed to happen.
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About Lee Williams
Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
Getting rid of the ATF doesn’t solve the under lying problem.
You need to get rid of GCA68 and the NFA.
Or some other federal agency well just take up enforcement of it.
Get rid of GCA68 and the biggest problems of ATF goes away.\
I am sure then FBI would just love to pick up the ATF’s employees and start enforcing GCA68 and the NFA
Defund , disband and go back and charge the guilty with crimes against the American people. That would take the wind out of these bloated windbags sails . Hold these clowns accountable for all the illegal actions by removing the statue of limitations just like they did for sex crimes .
Getting rid of the ATF is pointless, unless we also repeal all the federal anti gun laws and regulations, at the same time. Things that the NRA supported, such as the NFA from 1934, the GCA from 1968, the Hughes Amendment 1986, Bush Sr.’s stupid import ban on “scary guns”, Brady/NICS, and many others.
If we don’t, then an agency like the FBI will just take over for the ATF. Is that progress? Trading one tyrannical agency for another? No. Repeal the laws, and then disband the ATF.
#FATF
The day after Trump leaves office, if he doesn’t get rid of ATF and the anti-constitutional laws they like to “enforce”, he could be subject to an ATF raid to violate his rights and take his guns.
It’s not far fetched. He’s already had his rights violated by the state of New York, the FBI, CIA, FISA court and others.
Hopefully he has sympathy for the rest of America or someone will be bold enough to point out that eviserating the anti-costitutional state will help not only us, but him as well.
Wouldn’t it be something if President Trump appointed Branden Herrera as ATF director?
If Roe & Wade was defeated in his first term then all laws restricting the 2nd amendment rights like ones signed by Clinton & Bush can be defeated in his second term: These two actions will be a legacy that no president have achieved showing respect for our law of the land and the lives of our people
need scotus to say gca68 and 1934 are unconstitutional
The only good thing I can say about the ATF under Biden is AT LEAST THEY DIDN’T SHOOT UP & BURN DOWN ANY OCCUPIED CHURCHES!
Out of the 400 alphabet agencies most created by democrats in Washington to enrich themselves to gain control Chuck Schumer to Biden if you run again and lose you will destroy all the work we have done as democrats for the past 50 years.
Now that says it all in nut shell