It is an article of faith among anti-liberty/gun cracktivists that the gun industry is unregulated. Why, one can walk into a gun store and five minutes later walk out with a machinegun! Not only that, it’s impossible to sue gun makers, which is why Joe Biden’s handlers had him mangle so many teleprompter readings demanding the repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. It’s a genuinely bi-partisan act of Congress designed to prevent anti-liberty/gun cracktivists from suing gun makers out of business for the criminal misuse of their products by unknowable third parties. It’s a common tort law principle that, for example, prevents lawsuits against auto makers for accidents caused by reckless drivers.
Democrats have long used the ATF to produce constitutionally dubious prosecutions against manufacturers, retail dealers and individual citizens. It was the ATF, protected by then-AG Eric Holder, that was responsible for the Fast And Furious “gun-walking” scandal that allowed a great many guns to be transferred to Mexican drug cartels. That lunacy cost at least one Border Patrol agent his life and surely caused other deaths.
Graphic: Armed ATF agents stacking up. Wikimedia Commons.org. Public Domain.
There have been previous attempts to merge the ATF into other federal agencies, but all have failed, apparently because the other agencies didn’t want them, so poor was the ATF’s reputation. So, the ATF has swerved between being at least somewhat honest public servants to being anti-Second Amendment hitmen for Democrat politicians and gun haters.
But now the Trump Administration is floating a merger between the ATF and DEA:
A possible merger of the ATF and DEA into a single agency would "achieve efficiencies in resources, case deconfliction and regulatory efforts," the memo says. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche ordered department officials in the memo to provide feedback to the proposed restructuring by April 2.
He said the plan for proposed cuts and mergers to various offices was previously provided to the Office of Personnel Management and the White House Office of Management and Budget.
A DOJ official said the memo represents a preliminary proposal that is being circulated to solicit feedback from various department leaders.
Gun Owners of America is alarmed, warning such a merger would enable even greater anti-liberty/gun mischief, such as:
*The combined agency would have three times the ATF budget
*Four times current ATF tactical (SWAT-like) units
*More than 10,000 new employees
*Reduced oversight and accountability
The Firearms Policy Coalition is equally unimpressed:
The DOJ’s dangerous proposal would consolidate the ATF and DEA into an authoritarian “super-agency” with the combined powers to wage the failed war on drugs and enforce unconstitutional federal gun control laws against all Americans, not just violent criminals and drug cartels. By merging the ATF’s firearms enforcement authority into the DEA, the DOJ is effectively equating peaceable American gun owners with drug cartels, turning millions of law-abiding citizens—as well as their constitutionally protected weapons—into co-equal targets of a militarized federal enforcement regime.
It's hard to know who is right in this case. There’s no question the ATF has all too often abused its power, serving as an anti-gun enforcer for anti-liberty/gunners rather than a professional, non-partisan law enforcement agency. Too often their enforcement targets have been gun dealers who made innocent paperwork errors, or Americans with no criminal intent charged with made-up crimes. Some in Congress continue to want to entirely abolish the ATF, an idea that could arguably strengthen individual liberty.
It's also hard to imagine how the legally mandated tasks of both agencies might be combined in a way that would make either more efficient or less costly. Certainly, drug criminals often violate gun laws, but any federal agent can enforce those. One doubts the DEA would have any interest in enforcing the ATF’s regulatory tasks—the gun industry is heavily regulated from manufacture to retail sales—which might reasonably be accomplished without armed agents.
There are honest, professional, non-political ATF agents. Over the years, some have become whistleblowers, exposing all manner of malfeasance. As with all federal whistleblowers, they’ve been badly treated. But the rot begins at the top. And rolls downhill.
Obviously, a great many more details are going to be necessary before anyone, Congress included, can approve such a merger. President Trump has already directed the DOJ to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans, and the actions the Bondi DOJ has taken in defense of liberty have been positive, but distrust of government is now ingrained in Normal Americans, and the ATF is among the least trusted of all governmental agencies, perhaps lower than Congress whose approval rating is somewhere south of festering cold sores.
A merger of these agencies is going to be a hard sell.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.