Also seems to me with a government needing ot find ways to save money they could just create a new division of the FBI to focus on ATF type things and reduce bureaucracy.
You think that is going to solve things?
That is how the ATF started.
It goes back to the "Untouchables" and the Prohibition Bureau.
Agents needed work after prohibition ended so they went from alcohol prohibition to enforcing strict alcohol laws.
Then they had Tobacco added.
In 1968 with the Gun Control Act they had firearms added.
You can be sure many of the same agents in need of work would simply be applying and transferred to the new FBI division.
It would remove the perceived bad guy, and the new bad guy would just be part of an even larger federal agency with a bigger budget that arguably could be even more of a nuisance to FFLs and others when they were made to prioritize such things as when an anti-gun President or Attorney General is in office.
Currently it is a small agency with limited funding tasked with monitoring a large number of people. Which means they have to prioritize who they harass, the budget is too small to harass everyone.
In a bigger agency the budget might be bigger for such tasks at various times like when the politics is right. They wouldn't have to give more money to the ATF through Congress, the FBI could just divert more of its budget at the whim of the president.
A bigger agency gives a more fluid budget which would allow a large quantity of money to go towards anti-gun efforts at times. They can for example decide to devote X % of the FBI budget to such a task.
Allowing a much larger number of people to be harassed.
Right now it is one agency that can be the bad guy, have its funding well controlled, and its scope limited to what those in office wish.
Yes the agency has far more discretion in interpretation that it should on many issues. It also does things wrong. But everyone knows who they are, part of their own agency, focusing primarily on certain elements of the law.
It is the laws that need changing.
