President Trump Expected to Appoint Kash Patel as Acting ATF Head

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....well, the ATF is defined as a "law enforcement agency in the Dept. of Justice" and are responsible for investigating violations of Federal laws related to Firearms, explosives alcohol and tobacco. At least that was what they use to do and were originally designed to do. Sounds a lot like enforcement to me.
Sure, but why? FBI, ATF, IRS, Agriculture, plus how many others have armed agents in forcing laws they write as bureaucrats. As far as I feel about it, the only agencies that should have their own massive armed law enforcement are FBI, CBP, and Marshalls, with a few notable exceptions like DOD and maybe DOS for OCONUS embassies. ATF has been wreaking havoc on gun dealers and owners for years and notably increased during the last administration.
 
Why did we ever need the ATF
They were tax collectors, originally.
Because it makes the government money.
Dunno, will wager it takes two grand in wages and paperwork for that $200 stamp (there's no way those stamps are under $200 to print as they have to go through the Mint)
If they keep firing people, I can see wait times at the ATF increasing dramatically.
Well, they computerized the process rather significantly, eliminating the need for admin personnel.

For my 2¢, making Kash the Acting Director is a pretty serious slap in the face to the top six Deputy and Assistant Directors presently employed. Which may (or may not) fit into the present agenda which is asking "why have six if three--or two-will suffice?"

Will this have any immediate impacts on average firearms owners? I doubt it.
Now, if they nominate a director with SOT experience? That might make a difference.
Really what we need is a much skinnier CFR over all, and specifically where firearms are concerned.
 
My take is that Patel was chosen to rein in the staus quo ATF leadership and direct changes in the short term future. Trump may have someone else in mind for a permanent director, but it will take time to get him through the confirmation process.
 
I vaguely recall that a suggestion to combine ATF with FBI at the time of Waco, led the ATF to their ill planned raid on the Davidians for PR purposes. Then the FBI came in and that was a disaster also. Just sayin'.
ATF foul ups:

*Ruby Ridge
*Waco
*Milwaukee Sting
*Operation Fast & Furious
*Little Rock airport director Bryan Malinowski

ATF = AFU
 
Guess another point I failed to make about ATF is that if they are law enforcement, why do they also write regulations that they then enforce. FBI doesn’t make laws…neither does CBP. They are the law enforcement. But ATF writes regulations, interprets them based on their current politics, and then sends out agents to perform massive armed zero dark thirty raids on citizen homes or small business owners.

I hope Patel and Bondi put people behind bars for the chaos and fear they’ve caused.
 
Guess another point I failed to make about ATF is that if they are law enforcement, why do they also write regulations that they then enforce. FBI doesn’t make laws…neither does CBP. They are the law enforcement. But ATF writes regulations, interprets them based on their current politics, and then sends out agents to perform massive armed zero dark thirty raids on citizen homes or small business owners.
You have to remember that the ATF started out as a sub-agency within the IRS. There's both a regulatory function and an enforcement function within these agencies. (Different people, in each agency, are responsible for the different functions. The enforcement agents aren't the ones who write the regs.)
 
Guess another point I failed to make about ATF is that if they are law enforcement, why do they also write regulations that they then enforce. FBI doesn’t make laws…neither does CBP. They are the law enforcement. But ATF writes regulations, interprets them based on their current politics, and then sends out agents to perform massive armed zero dark thirty raids on citizen homes or small business owners.

I hope Patel and Bondi put people behind bars for the chaos and fear they’ve caused.
The FBI writes regulation all the time.

Do you not remember this?

1740360821839.png

CBP, US Customs, etc, they all have written regulations. Heck, NOAA's Fisheries Police did and it was because of them, that SCOTUS killed Chevron Deference.
 
My money is on the FBI absorbing all the 1811 series special agents in the BATF... they will become FBI special agents and be distributed to the various investigative programs. And those programs in the FBI that target violent gangs will be enhanced.

What will remain of the BATF is a regulatory agency with non-LE compliance officers overseeing FFLs, manufacturers and Title III transfers as proscribed by law (and alcohol and tobacco at vastly reduced level).

Getting LE out of BATF would align with the executive order regarding federal gun policy, and also cost-cutting: the FBI could pause hiring for an entire year and still get 2,500 additional agents through absorption. And pausing hiring for a year would give Patel time to get the FBI Academy straightened out: I'd send the all the instructors and management back to field offices and start over interviewing replacements (that alone will cause a bunch of retirements).
 
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My money is on the FBI absorbing all the 1811 series special agents in the BATF... they will become FBI special agents and be distributed to the various investigative programs. And those programs in the FBI that target violent gangs will be enhanced.

What will remain of the BATF is a regulatory agency with non-LE compliance officers overseeing FFLs, manufacturers and Title III transfers as proscribed by law (and alcohol and tobacco at vastly reduced level).

Makes a lot of sense.


Having the FBI focus on crime fighting has been said before so absorbing those ATF agents fits.

Making ATF take an administrative paper pushing role pushes law making back to congress where it should be and complys with Chevron tone.

Saves money for doge so you got that


I could see it going that direction
 
I’m with you.

Frankly most things a president does seems to be fairly irrelevant in the long term, the next guy gets in and reverses everything he wants. I’m getting more and more convinced our system of governance (the one we have, not the one envisioned in 1789) can last very long.

Anyway, the issue at hand seems like it may be giving the ATF the added strength of the FBI. That doesn’t sound good, when the next guy uses it to target gun owners we’ll regret it.
We need to get legislation enacted during this congressional term.
 
Incremental change is a conservative concept that conservatives don't seem to even remember ever existing. Slash and Burn is what we have now, and it will be to our detriment. Moreover, a campaign targeting government workers is, in fact, targeting Americans, and when you're getting rid of experts then searching the alleys for them- and also routinely threatening and demeaning workers- it's a S*** show.

Performative scapegoating and dehumanization is a dogs*** way to run a government.
 
Brandon Herrera did a video on this and why he thinks it would be bad for gun owners if the ATF were quickly abolished and its duties handed to the FBI..

Regardless, there's zero reason the Republicans shouldn't be able to get the Hearing Protection Act passed to take suppressors off the NFA. We will see if the Republicans will actually do anything pro-2A legislatively while they can. If not and it's all just executive actions by Trump, then it can all be undone with the stroke of a pen when the next Democrat or anti-gun Republican gets into office.
 
Regardless, there's zero reason the Republicans shouldn't be able to get the Hearing Protection Act passed to take suppressors off the NFA. We will see if the Republicans will actually do anything pro-2A legislatively while they can. If not and it's all just executive actions by Trump, then it can all be undone with the stroke of a pen when the next Democrat or anti-gun Republican gets into office.
The way this could be done would be to put a provision into the massive budget reconciliation bill. Otherwise it would be killed by the Senate filibuster.

But if we're going to be amending the NFA, why not repeal section 922(o) (the Hughes Amendment) as well? It all depends on how the issues are framed. Actually, "deregulating silencers" generates worse PR than "providing for machine guns to be registered and taxed." (And once the Hughes Amendment is removed, that opens the way for an administrative MG amnesty under the GCA '68.)

Since these are both tax provisions, they're obviously germane to budget reconciliation. In fact, loss of silencer revenue would be offset by gain of MG revenue.

If this is going to be done, it has to be done in the next couple of months. But frankly, I don't see it happening.
 
Since these are both tax provisions, they're obviously germane to budget reconciliation. In fact, loss of silencer revenue would be offset by gain of MG revenue.

I believe that may not be the result. Even if full auto prices went down to pre May '86 prices (Ingram M10s for $150) which isn't going to happen anyway, I still believe there isn't going to be a mad rush for full autos, whereas silencers have steadily risen since people have started to realize they can own them, and even more so since the process was streamlined.
 
I believe that may not be the result. Even if full auto prices went down to pre May '86 prices (Ingram M10s for $150) which isn't going to happen anyway, I still believe there isn't going to be a mad rush for full autos, whereas silencers have steadily risen since people have started to realize they can own them, and even more so since the process was streamlined.
If MGs suddenly were legalized, every Tom, Dick, and Harry would order a GLOCK conversion backplate and a lightning link for their AR-15.
 
If MGs suddenly were legalized, every Tom, Dick, and Harry would order a GLOCK conversion backplate and a lightning link for their AR-15.
Hundreds of thousands of AR-15's would have the "third hole" drilled if Forms 1 were accepted. (Why bother with a lightning link if you could have a registered receiver?) In any case, registrations of MG's would far exceed the fad for silencers today.
 
I still believe there isn't going to be a mad rush for full autos,
Not a "mad rush" -- an avalanche. The backlog for ATF approval would stretch to years. People would rush to Form 1 every semiautomatic they could lay their hands on. Even if they didn't intend to actually convert it. Just having the paperwork would give them options.

(BTW, registering a gun as a full automatic would also subsume the SBR category. SBR's, braces, bump stocks, etc., would all become moot. Remember, a machine gun is neither a rifle nor a pistol, and it can have any barrel length.)
 
My .02cents - Alcohol and tobacco get moved over to HHS and firearms dies a slow death as part of the FBI.
 
If MGs suddenly were legalized, every Tom, Dick, and Harry would order a GLOCK conversion backplate and a lightning link for their AR-15.
That's because the NFA and closure of the machine gun registry has created an artificial demand for full auto. If the NFA did not exist, or if the registry had not been closed, there would be a few machine guns out there, but not nearly as many as the penned up demand created by the NFA would create.
 
That's because the NFA and closure of the machine gun registry has created an artificial demand for full auto. If the NFA did not exist, or if the registry had not been closed, there would be a few machine guns out there, but not nearly as many as the penned up demand created by the NFA would create.
Suppressors have exploded in popularity. That's mostly due to changing state law on possession and use for hunting.
 
If the NFA did not exist, or if the registry had not been closed, there would be a few machine guns out there, but not nearly as many as the penned up demand created by the NFA would create.
With $200 being relative chump change in 2025, the internet making the NFA process much easier to understand and undertake by the average gun owner, and the explosion in popularity of the AR platform which is particularly well-suited to full auto controllability, I think there would be a whole lot of machine guns being made and bought today were the registry never closed.
 
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