Abolish the ATF?
A bill introduced this week by Representatives Boebert (R-Colorado) and Burlison (R-Missouri) seeks to eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [sic regarding the lack of comma] on the grounds that, according to Boebert, the agency will in due time abolish the Second Amendment and is, according to Burlison, “emblematic of the deep-state bureaucracy that believes it can infringe on constitutional liberties without consequence.” The bill’s language is concise, fitting onto a single page, stating simply, “The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is hereby abolished.”
The agency, in reply to a request for comment by the Baltimore Sun, stated, “ATF plays a critical role in keeping the American people safe by enforcing federal firearms laws passed by Congress, supporting state and local law enforcement operations with investigative leads through ATF crime gun intelligence tools, and protecting communities from violent crime by removing thousands of violent offenders from the streets each year,” a response that is sufficiently insipid for government work. The most recent data provided by the agency on their arrests and the resulting convictions is vague, claiming some 38,000 firearms, arson, and explosives cases having been initiated, with only 5,338 resulting convictions—but that number is in the thousands, so very well. How violent any of the suspects may have been and how many of the charges were piggybacking on other cases to produce enhanced sentences is not specified.
As amusing as the line running around the gun community that the ATF should be a convenience store, not a federal agency might be, there are two main problems with the bill introduced by Boebert and Burlison. To start with, disbanding the ATF would accomplish nothing beyond the headaches of transferring more than five thousand federal employees with civil service protection into other positions in the Department of Justice or Treasury or whatnot or into similar jobs elsewhere in law enforcement, jobs in which they would perform the same tasks that they are doing now. They would have the same authority that they currently exercise under federal law, and they would participate in the same militarized culture of cops that pervades the United States. All of this shuffling about would be messy—see the creation of the Department of Homeland Security—but in the end, just as many dogs would get shot, just as many American gun owners trying to work their way through the maze of firearms regulation would be pursued, and just as many gun stores would be harassed.
This is because these transferred agents would still have the National Firearms Act of 194, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, among miscellaneous other federal legislation, to work with. As long as those laws remain in effect, some organ of the executive branch will enforce them. The bill authored by Boebert and Burlison does nothing to change this.
Eric Burlison has not made himself infamous nationally, but Lauren Boebert’s previous antics mean that I am unsurprised that she would co-author a bill that is pure political theater with little chance of being enacted. At least it would have little chance in a normal Congress. What may happen in this era of clown college fascism is anyone’s guess, though I suspect that the few remaining adults in the House and Senate will find a way quietly to set this nonsense aside.
It may sound strange for someone who supports gun rights to call the attempted abolishment of the ATF nonsense, but I mean that for more than just the procedural observation given above. I also understand that there must be some regulatory authority to deal with alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives—Oxford comma included.
The ATF has its roots in the 1880s in this nation’s efforts to collect taxes on alcohol, and while it is common for right wingers to object to any tax on principle, we have a federal government, and it must be paid for. That government is not perfect, but I invite my Republican and libertarian opponents to review the days of the Articles of Confederation to see the inefficiencies and frictions that were the case when we had a weak central authority. Some on the right might claim to desire a return to those days, but we do not live in their fantasy of the eighteenth century. I do like knowing that when I buy a firearm or alcohol that the seller is a reliable business that should refrain from breaking the law. I have no use for tobacco, though I prefer to see a legal trade in that product, so long as it is in demand. If we ever could have a federally legal and rational market in other psychoactive substances, those, too, would presumably come under the notice of some regulatory agency. And if we are going to sell explosives to the general public, a product that goes beyond the boundaries of personal weapons, we ought to regulate their sale.
To be sure, the ATF is notorious for its disregard of the basic rights and even the safety of ordinary Americans, but abolishing said agency will not remove the disdain and willful violence inherent in too much of federal law enforcement. What is required is a reform in how the federal government relates to the citizens of this country, a demand that the central authority comply with the mandates of the Constitution. If that is achieved, the ATF will serve a useful role. If we cannot bring ourselves to get this necessary restructuring done, no political theater such as the bill in question will accomplish any good.
I do not expect Representative Boebert and the many Trumpists who associate with her to understand that concept.
