GOP lawmaker plans to introduce invoice that might abolish the ATF: ‘Catastrophe company’ 

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) introduced this week that he plans to introduce laws that might abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). 

“In January, I will likely be submitting the invoice that Matt Gaetz sponsored to abolish the ATF. Why? As a result of we’re preventing for you,” Burlison stated in a video posted on X. 

The Missouri Republican co-sponsored Gaetz’s “Abolish the ATF Act” final yr, which sought to get rid of the federal company over considerations that its rulemaking associated to firearms quantities to “massive authorities overreach.” 

Burlison, 48, argues that the 52-year-old company has trampled on Individuals’ proper to bear arms. 

“The ATF has been a catastrophe for the American individuals and our God-given Second Modification rights,” he wrote on X. “It ought to completely be abolished.” 

The ATF, which falls underneath the umbrella of the Justice Division, regulates firearms and explosives and has the authority to implement federal prison legal guidelines and create new guidelines associated to weapons. 

The company confronted criticism from gun-rights advocates final yr when it tried to make use of the Nationwide Firearms Act of 1934 – the primary federal legislation to impose limitations on gun possession –  to implement a rule banning pistol braces. 

The ATF’s pistol brace ban was ultimately overturned by a federal courtroom in Texas. 

In an interview with Fox Information Digital, the Home Freedom Caucus member advised that states must be liable for imposing gun legal guidelines and never the ATF, which he known as a “catastrophe company.”  

“There’s only a few ATF officers,” Burlison stated, charging that the company is “co-opting or commandeering [local] legislation enforcement to implement legal guidelines” that state legislatures didn’t approve.

In response to Burlison’s criticisms, an ATF spokesperson informed Fox Information Digital that the company “gives huge advantages to the American public by way of all of its efforts preventing violent crime each day.”