Remember when conservatives dreamed about cutting back bloated government agencies? Well, pinch yourself, Americans—it’s actually happening. President Trump’s newly proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 is taking a chainsaw to the ATF’s funding, with a whopping $486 million on the chopping block. That’s right, nearly half a billion dollars yanked from the agency that’s been the bane of gun owners’ existence for decades.
According to the New York Times, the White House isn’t mincing words about why they’re cutting the ATF down to size. An anonymous senior official told ABC News that the agency’s “abusive regulatory decrees” against law-abiding gun owners are precisely what put them in the budget crosshairs. The official statement from the White House makes their intentions crystal clear: to “[halt] the ATF’s criminalizing of gun-owning Americans and instead, focusing on stopping illegal firearms traffickers and violent gang members.”
But while Trump is content to trim the fat, one congressman thinks it’s time to serve up the whole hog. Rep. Eric Burlison (R) has been on a mission to completely abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, saying it’s time to “return power to the people.”
From ‘Breitbart News’:
The ATF has turned into a political weapon, targeting law abiding Americans while ignoring real criminals. It is time to shut it down and return power to the people.
Trimming the Fat: Trump Takes Aim at ATF’s Wallet
The White House’s budget document doesn’t just cut funding—it delivers a scathing indictment of how the ATF has been weaponized against everyday Americans. The budget explicitly states it “bolsters the Second Amendment by cutting funding for ATF offices that have criminalized law-abiding gun ownership through regulatory fiat.”
What exactly has the ATF been up to that’s got the administration so riled up? The budget document spells it out: “The previous administration used the ATF to attack gun-owning Americans and undermine the Second Amendment” through measures like “requiring near-universal background checks” and “subjecting otherwise lawful gun owners to up to 10 years in prison for failing to register pistol braces that make it possible for disabled veterans to use firearms.”
Let that sink in—disabled veterans being threatened with prison for wanting to exercise their constitutional rights. If that doesn’t get your blood boiling, I don’t know what will.
The Nuclear Option: Burlison’s Plan to Dismantle the ATF
While Trump’s budget cuts are significant, Rep. Burlison is thinking bigger. Much bigger. He introduced H.R. 221 earlier this year with a straightforward purpose: “Abolish The ATF. It’s that simple. Eliminate this redundant agency that consistently violates Second Amendment rights.”
Burlison has been relentless in his campaign, taking to social media to rally supporters. In an April post on X (formerly Twitter), he didn’t mince words: “The ATF is not your friend. Its job is infringement. A free country doesn’t need a gun control enforcement agency. End it.”
For those who might think eliminating an entire federal agency sounds extreme, Burlison has been quick to counter that narrative. Since launching his campaign in November 2024, he’s consistently maintained that there’s “nothing radical” about abolishing the ATF. After all, why should American taxpayers fund an agency whose primary purpose seems to be infringing on the constitutional rights of those same taxpayers?
Freedom Restored: What This Means for American Gun Owners
Burlison isn’t stopping with just abolishing the ATF. He’s simultaneously working to repeal the National Firearms Act (NFA), which would eliminate cumbersome processes currently involved in acquiring suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and other firearms and accessories.
“Gun control has always been about control, not safety,” Burlison stated bluntly in a social media post. “The NFA is a prime example of this, and we’re working to take it down.”
The impact on law-abiding gun owners would be immediate and substantial. No more waiting months for paperwork to clear just to purchase a suppressor to protect your hearing while shooting. No more arbitrary classifications that can turn a law-abiding citizen into a felon overnight because of a measurement difference of a quarter-inch on a firearm. No more living in fear that today’s legal firearm accessory could be tomorrow’s felony contraband because some unelected bureaucrat decided to reinterpret a regulation.
For decades, the ATF has gradually expanded its authority through regulatory interpretation rather than actual legislation. Both Trump’s budget and Burlison’s bill represent the most serious challenges to this administrative overreach in generations.
While some may claim these measures would threaten public safety, the reality is quite different. The budget explicitly redirects focus toward “stopping illegal firearms traffickers and violent gang members”—you know, actual criminals rather than law-abiding citizens who just want to exercise their constitutional rights without government harassment.
The combination of Trump’s budget axe and Burlison’s abolition bill signals what could be a watershed moment for Second Amendment rights in America. After years of encroachment on constitutional freedoms, the pendulum appears to be swinging back toward the vision of the Founding Fathers—a nation where the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.”
Key Takeaways:
- Trump’s 2026 budget cuts $486 million from the ATF, targeting offices that penalize lawful gun owners.
- Rep. Burlison’s H.R. 221 aims to completely abolish the ATF, calling it a “political weapon” against citizens.
- Both initiatives focus on protecting Second Amendment rights while redirecting resources toward actual criminals.
