Both Sides of Gun Debate Criticize Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) recently announced that it had seized 36,277 illegal crime guns and more than 2.3 million rounds of ammunition since Jan. 20, 2025.

Within that total, the agency said it stopped a total of 4,359 firearms and 648,975 rounds of ammunition from getting to organized crime syndicates in Mexico.

At the same time, those on both sides of the gun debate are criticizing the agency. Gun control advocates say that under President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice is failing to deal with domestic issues involving guns.

Gun rights advocates say the ATF is a redundant agency, doing work that other agencies can do, and the laws from which it draws its authority violate Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

Gun control organizations did not respond to requests for comment by publication. However, their websites list their concerns, which include the dismantling of Biden’s gun control agenda.

On his second day in office, Trump closed the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which was opened by President Joe Biden by executive order on Sept. 22, 2023.

Biden opened the office to “drive and coordinate a government and a nationwide effort to reduce gun violence in America,” the order stated.

The ATF under the Trump administration also rescinded the “zero tolerance policy” implemented by the ATF at the direction of former Attorney General Merrick Garland.

According to Biden administration officials, the policy shut down rogue gun dealers who willfully disregarded the ATF rules.

Gun rights activists say the policy shut down honest businesses that made minor errors in filling out paperwork.

Data released by the ATF in 2023 showed that revocations of Federal Firearms Licenses increased under the policy.

The ATF said it revoked five Federal Firearms License between July 2021 and December 2021. There were 51 revocations reported for the same period in 2022.

Kris Brown, president of gun control advocacy group Brady, said the revocations only impacted a small number of Federal Firearms License holders who willfully violated the law.

“By dismantling this policy, the Trump administration is deliberately empowering these irresponsible gun dealers to operate without accountability, effectively arming criminals who will use these weapons to terrorize our communities,” Brown said in a statement.

Brown said the Trump administration was taking a lax approach to background checks. She also decried a policy to make it easier for non-violent felons to have their Second Amendment rights restored. She wrote that these policies made clear where Trump’s priorities lay.

“These aren’t just policy changes—they’re deliberate choices that prioritize gun industry profits over American lives,” Brown stated.

She also noted that recent reassignments of ATF personnel to assist with the deportation of illegal immigrants only exacerbates the problem.

A blog post on the Everytown for Gun Safety website said the Trump administration prohibited the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from sharing information with the FBI that would prevent a veteran from purchasing a gun unless a court had ruled the veteran a danger to themself or others.

The post also stated that the VA was ordered to purge thousands of veteran mental health records from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. This would make it easier for veterans with mental health issues to obtain guns, the post reads.

“These rollbacks advance an extreme ‘guns everywhere’ agenda with life-threatening consequences for our communities,” the post stated.

Attorney General Pam Bondi also set up a Second Amendment Rights office in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Bondi wrote that the office, which opened last December, would “use its full might to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” in an April 8, 2025, memo.

However, gun rights advocates aren’t convinced of the administration’s dedication to the Second Amendment.

Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, pointed out that as the office was being opened, ATF was fighting to keep the National Firearms Act of 1934. This was in response to a lawsuit filed by Combs’s organization.

Under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress reduced the $200 excise tax on silencers, short-barreled shotguns, and short-barreled rifles under the National Firearms Act of 1934 to $0.

Second Amendment proponents expected this would effectively remove the items from the list of firearms that need to be registered. However, the ATF claims that a $0 tax is still a tax and so the items must still be registered with the government.

Several gun rights groups have sued to have the National Firearms Act of 1934 declared an unconstitutional gun registry.

Machine guns and destructive devices are still subject to the $200 National Firearms Act tax.

Combs and others say the ATF and the gun control laws it is tasked with enforcing violate the rights of law-abiding gun owners while doing little to solve or prevent crime.

When asked about the announcement that ATF intercepted guns on their way to Mexico, Luis Valdes, a national spokesman for Gun Owners of America, said that the number of guns smuggled into Mexico from the United States is tiny when compared to the number of guns provided by other sources, including corrupt Mexican officials and international arms dealers.

“It’s not private gun owners. It’s not private gun stores that are the main source of firearms and ammunition for the cartels and the crime rate in in Mexico, it’s mostly the Mexican government,” Valdes told The Epoch Times.

Valdes said the ATF’s regulatory and law enforcement functions could be handled by the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and state and local agencies without violating Americans’ constitutional rights.

“This is an agency that shouldn’t exist,” Valdes said. “Ultimately, we want the ATF to be abolished.”