ATF Director Robert Cekada recently went before Congress asking lawmakers to trust his agency with a massive $1.65 billion budget. After years of watching the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives harass gun dealers, target lawful gun owners, defend Biden-era gun grabs, and try to regulate the Second Amendment out of existence,
Texas gun owners have a better idea: Abolish the ATF.
Cekada may be saying some of the right things under President Trump. He’s talked about rebuilding trust with Federal Firearms Licensees, lawful gun owners, and the firearms industry. He’s pointed to the rollback of Biden-era abuses. He’s promised that the agency is entering a new era of reform, transparency, and respect for the rule of law.
But gun owners have seen this movie before. The problem with the ATF isn’t just bad leadership. The problem is the agency itself.
“Gun owners do not owe the ATF trust. The ATF owes gun owners accountability,” said Chris McNutt, President of Texas Gun Rights. “This agency has spent decades attacking the Second Amendment, and one supposedly friendlier administration does not erase that history.”
New Director, Same Dangerous Agency
During recent congressional testimony, Cekada defended ATF’s budget request while insisting the agency is focused on violent criminals, illegal trafficking, and rebuilding relationships with the firearms industry.
That sounds nice. But the ATF has never lacked talking points. What it has lacked is respect for the Second Amendment.
Under the Biden administration, the ATF became one of the gun confiscation lobby’s favorite weapons. When anti-gun politicians could not get their agenda through Congress, they turned to ATF bureaucrats to do it through rulemaking, enforcement threats, and regulatory intimidation.
That is how Washington works. Congress refuses to pass a gun ban, so the White House tells the ATF to “re-interpret” the law. Gun owners object, so the ATF calls them criminals. And then the same agency that created the mess turns around and asks Congress for more money.
Now Cekada wants lawmakers to believe the agency has changed. But one pro-gun administration cannot fix an anti-gun agency.
Biden Showed America What ATF Is Built to Do
The Biden administration didn’t create the ATF’s anti-gun mission. It exposed it.
Under Biden, ATF launched its war on pistol braces, threatening millions of peaceable gun owners with felony prosecution for owning firearms the agency had previously allowed.
The ATF went after forced reset triggers, treating law-abiding Americans and manufacturers like criminals over firearm parts that bureaucrats suddenly decided they did not like.
The agency enforced Biden’s “zero tolerance” policy against gun dealers, using paperwork errors and compliance issues to threaten the livelihoods of FFLs across the country.
Then came the so-called “engaged in the business” rule, another backdoor attempt to move America closer to universal gun registration by treating more private firearm sales as regulated dealer activity.
Again and again, ATF did what it has always done…use federal power to intimidate, regulate, and criminalize the exercise of a constitutional right. None of this was about public safety. It was about power. It was about doing through the bureaucracy what the gun confiscation lobby couldn’t accomplish through legislation.
“Biden’s ATF showed us exactly what this agency becomes when anti-gun politicians are in charge,” McNutt said. “The answer isn’t to hope the ATF behaves better next time. The answer is to make sure there is no next time.”
A Bigger Budget Means a Bigger Threat
Cekada is asking Congress for roughly $1.65 billion while promising the ATF will behave. But gun owners have no reason to fund their own future persecution.
Every dollar Congress gives the ATF expands the machinery that can be turned against lawful gun owners the next time an anti-gun administration takes power. Every database. Every enforcement program. Every “crime gun intelligence” tool. Every new bureaucratic partnership. Every additional agent, analyst, lawyer, and compliance officer.
Maybe today those resources are described as tools to fight violent crime. Tomorrow, they can be turned into tools to target FFLs, build backdoor gun registries, harass manufacturers, or criminalize gun owners over regulatory technicalities.
That’s the danger. The ATF does not need a public relations makeover. It needs to be de-funded, restrained, and ultimately abolished.
Reform Isn’t Enough
Some in Washington want gun owners to believe ATF can be fixed with better leadership. But leadership changes. Presidents change. Internal policies change. And guidance memos are rewritten overnight.
A rule that’s repealed under one administration can be revived under the next. A compliance policy that’s softened today can become weaponized tomorrow. A database built for one stated purpose can be abused for another.
That’s why Texas Gun Rights rejects the idea that the ATF simply needs reform. The agency has been weaponized too many times, by too many administrations, against too many gun owners.
The ATF’s core problem is structural. It’s an armed federal bureaucracy with the power to interpret, enforce, and expand federal gun laws against the very people the Second Amendment was written to protect. That is incompatible with liberty. And it will remain a threat as long as it exists.
We Know What Bureaucratic Gun Confiscation Looks Like
Texas Gun Rights has spent years warning gun owners about the danger of giving government officials the power to strip people of their rights without due process. That is why TXGR fought so hard to ban red flag gun confiscation schemes in Texas. And we won.
Red flag laws are built on the same rotten premise that drives so much of the federal gun control machine: take the guns first, ask questions later, and pretend due process is an inconvenience.
The ATF operates with the same mindset. Instead of passing laws through elected representatives, anti-gun politicians rely on agency rulemaking. Instead of treating gun owners like citizens with rights, bureaucrats treat them like suspects. Instead of respecting the Second Amendment, Washington looks for loopholes, redefinitions, and enforcement tricks to get around it.
That’s why this fight is bigger than one hearing or one budget request. It’s about whether gun owners will continue allowing federal agencies to turn constitutional rights into government permissions.
Congress Shouldn’t Reward ATF With a Blank Check
If Congress is serious about protecting the Second Amendment, it shouldn’t hand ATF a $1.65 billion check. It should use the power of the purse to force real accountability. That means no funding for enforcing Biden-era gun grabs.
No funding for backdoor gun registration schemes. No funding for harassment of FFLs over paperwork traps. No funding for attacks on pistol braces, forced reset triggers, or other politically targeted firearm accessories. No funding for regulatory fishing expeditions against law-abiding gun owners. And ultimately, Congress should move to abolish the ATF altogether.
Legitimate criminal enforcement against violent offenders can be handled without maintaining a rogue anti-gun bureaucracy whose mission expands every time the gun confiscation lobby wins an election. Gun owners shouldn’t be forced to bankroll the agency that has spent decades trying to regulate their rights away.
Abolish the ATF
Cekada may be saying the right things today, but the next anti-gun administration is already waiting for the chance to weaponize the ATF again. That’s the lesson gun owners should take from the experience of the Biden years. Not that gun owners should “rebuild trust” with an agency that’s spent decades abusing them.
The lesson is simple: the ATF shouldn’t exist.
Freedom is not protected by trusting bureaucrats. Freedom is protected by limiting their power. And no federal agency with the ATF’s record of abuse deserves another billion-dollar budget from Congress.
…the agency is focused on violent criminals, illegal trafficking…
And no other federal agency could handle that? There is no reason to keep the ATF. Fold their specialized labs and staff into the FBI and dissolve the ATF. Yes, the FBI has been weaponized too. That’s a morality problem, not an agency problem. What else should you expect when immoral people are in charge?