“Guns and Drugs Go Together,” Says Bondi
During recent congressional testimony, Bondi defended the proposed merger, claiming the consolidation would improve federal efficiency in tackling violent crime, especially against cartels. “Guns and drugs go together,” she declared, suggesting that combining the two enforcement agencies under one roof would create a streamlinedresponse to violent criminal enterprises.
But Bondi’s comments did little to calm the storm. In fact, they appear to have inflamed it.
Opposition from All Sides
Gun rights groups and gun control organizations rarely agree on much—but Bondi’s plan has united them in opposition, albeit for different reasons.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents firearms manufacturers and retailers, slammed the merger as a bureaucratic nightmare that would confuse enforcement priorities and further entrench the federal regulatory overreach gun owners already fear.
NSSF argues that folding ATF’s regulatory role into the DEA’s militarized drug enforcement mission would blur crucial lines between constitutionally protected rights and illegal narcotics enforcement.
On the other end of the spectrum, Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, backed by Michael Bloomberg, voiced concern that the merger would “weaken” ATF’s enforcement of existing gun laws, fearing it would dilute focus and resources needed to “crack down” on gun dealers and manufacturers.
Senator Lindsey Graham: “Makes No Sense to Me”
In an unexpected turn, gun owners found an unlikely ally in Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who, during a recent Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, bluntly stated, “This merger makes no sense to me.”
Graham was joined by Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), who echoed concerns that the ATF’s vital forensic capabilities—like the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN)—could be lost or diminished if absorbed by the DEA.
Their skepticism highlights growing unease among Republicans who see the merger as an ill-conceived reshuffling of agencies rather than serious reform.
Texas Gun Rights: “Abolish, Don’t Merge”
No group has been more vocally opposed to the merger than Texas Gun Rights, whose President Chris McNutt didn’t mince words.
“The ATF is a rogue agency that’s been violating the rights of law-abiding gun owners for decades. It doesn’t need to be restructured or reformed — it needs to be abolished,” McNutt said.
“Merging the ATF with the DEA is a bureaucratic Frankenstein. We don’t need a supercharged federal gun control task force—what we need is for Congress to pass H.R. 221 and eliminate the ATF entirely.”
McNutt’s position mirrors that of TXGR’s national affiliate, the National Association for Gun Rights, which has made abolishing the ATF a central plank of its federal policy agenda.
A Super-Agency With Superpowers?
Texas Gun Rights warns that the merger would do the opposite of reining in ATF abuses—it would expand them.
Under the DOJ plan, the DEA-ATF merger would triple the ATF’s budget, add over 10,000 new federal agents, and multiply its tactical units—turning an already controversial agency into a “supercharged” enforcement arm with even less oversight.
And with Congress under Republican control, gun rights groups are urging immediate legislative action before it’s too late.
Once a future anti-gun administration is in place, they warn, it could inherit a behemoth agency with unchecked power and a license to crack down on gun ownership across the board.
As the DOJ moves forward with its merger plan, Texas Gun Rights is demanding Congress act now to block the merger and abolish the ATF before the 2026 elections.
“Gun owners have been lied to enough,” McNutt said. “This isn’t about safety. This is about power. And we will not let our rights be steamrolled under the pretense of reform.”
That’s like merging the Army and the Coast Guard.
We already did this a few different times in history with merging the ATF into other agencies.
In 1886 it was first established as the ‘Revenue Laboratory’ within the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Internal Revenue. Then it was merged with the Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1920 and called the ‘Bureau of Prohibition’ and was a unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Then it was merged into the Treasury Department in 1927. Then it was merged into the Justice Department in 1930, and became for a brief time a division of the FBI in 1933. But then in 1933 it was merged back into the Department of the Treasury to became the ‘Alcohol Tax Unit (ATU)’ of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, It had a change in name in the 1950’s when the Bureau of Internal Revenue was renamed “Internal Revenue Service” (IRS) and the ‘Alcohol Tax Unit (ATU)’ was given the responsibility of enforcing federal tobacco tax laws and renamed to ‘Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division (ATTD)’. In 1968 the Gun Control Act passed and the ‘Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division (ATTD)’ name changed to the ‘Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Division’ of the IRS and started being referred to as ‘ATF’. In 1972 the ATF was officially established as an independent bureau within the Treasury Department. Then in 2002 with the ‘Homeland Security Act of 2002’ being enacted the ATF removed from the Treasury Department and merged back into the Department of Justice and renamed ‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE)’.
In every instance of those past mergers or transfers, even with its very early beginning as the ‘Revenue Laboratory’, the ATF (under what ever name it was know as) always acted as a rouge ‘agency’ with committing abuses of law and rights and made up their own ‘rules’ using the ‘authority’ and ‘guise’ of what ever agency or department it was merged into or fell under. In other words, ‘ATF’ (no matter what it was named) has never been anything but a rouge abusive agency/unit/department that did not respect constitutional rights and were willing to skirt the law or simply make up their own ‘law’. Under the Biden-Harris tyranny, and able to be influenced directly by anti-gun orgs, the ATF reverted to its true nature again and at the behest of the Biden-Harris tyranny and their other masters in the anti-gun orgs they were more than happy to to make up law through self-interpenetration thus create unconstitutional ‘defacto law’ to bypass congress constitutional law making authority and use it as the excuse to terrorize and threaten and kill law abiding gun owners who had committed no crime and employ deadly force threat at gun point to threaten to shoot their family members.
And here we are again today, trying to repeat history but this time with even more manpower and resources.
So I just bring this up because, as someone once wrote, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
“On the other end of the spectrum, Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, backed by Michael Bloomberg, voiced concern that the merger would ‘weaken’ ATF’s enforcement of existing gun laws, fearing it would dilute focus and resources needed to ‘crack down’ on gun dealers and manufacturers.”
Translation: “We already have our pawns structure embedded in the ATF willing to kill innocent gun owners because they say so by using ‘defacto law’ created by self-interpretation in compliance with our goals. Merging ATF into the DEA will destroy that structure.”
Remember that the existence of the ATF isn’t the cause of infringements just the existence of guns aren’t the cause of violence.
“…the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN)—could be lost or diminished if absorbed by the DEA.”
No, Lindsey. You don’t make sense. Nothing has to be lost or diminished.
Just abolish the ATF and be done with it. Keep all of the specialists, and move them to the FBI. Move the rest of the employees to ICE and border enforcement. This doesn’t have to be complicated.
“This doesn’t have to be complicated.”
This is government, of course it has to be complicated.
😁
It doesn’t have to… but it will, because… gov’t.
Celebrated NY DEI Boss Arrested by FBI | Chinese Spy & $44M Fraud
“Linda Sun was hailed as a champion of DEI in New York, serving under Governors Cuomo and Hochul. But behind her diversity-driven agenda, she allegedly operated as an unregistered Chinese agent—steering millions in COVID relief contracts, forging state documents, and influencing U.S.–China policy. Federal prosecutors accuse Sun and her husband of laundering up to $8M and interfering with Taiwan diplomacy to align with Beijing’s interests. This video dives into the wild story of how New York’s top DEI officer became a key player in an international espionage and fraud scandal. Buckle up—this story is almost too crazy to believe.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_TaCM_ZufY
‘We’re not done yet’: FBI arrests 2 Chinese spies accused of trying to recruit US service members.
“Two Chinese nationals have been charged by the US Department of Justice for allegedly spying on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security. The DOJ claimed that the duo attempted to recruit US military service members and paid for classified Navy intelligence using covert ‘dead-drop’ methods, including a $10,000 payment at a California recreational center. The FBI called this part of a larger Chinese effort to infiltrate the US military and compromise national security. ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wscvu3iFGSc
Lol SAFE is probably taking a day off to celebrate till they replace her with a new didn’t earn it.