The Justice Department currently has roughly 800 investigators who are responsible for ensuring that licensed gun dealers are following safeguards and preventing criminals and those with severe mental illnesses from purchasing firearms. The New York Times reported, however, that this status quo is about to undergo a dramatic change.
The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s already crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals, according to budget documents. The move, part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, comes as the department considers merging the A.T.F. and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
According to the report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, of the 800 investigators currently on the job — by most measures, a total that is already too small given the scope of the national task — Donald Trump’s DOJ will get rid of 541 of them.
John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told the Times, “These are devastating cuts to law enforcement funding and would undermine A.T.F.’s ability to keep communities safe from gun violence. This budget would be a win for unscrupulous gun dealers and a terrible setback for A.T.F.’s state and local law enforcement partners.”
Making matters worse is the familiarity of these circumstances — because this latest step is part of a related series.
In fact, just last month, the Trump administration also decided it would permit the sale of “forced reset triggers,” which can turn semiautomatic weapons into guns that can fire more bullets, faster and easier. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the move “will enhance public safety,” which seemed to turn reality on its head.
Indeed, a spokesperson for Giffords, the national gun violence prevention group led by former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, told NBC News, “The Trump administration has just effectively legalized machine guns.”
Alas, we can keep going. After the 2022 massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, there was bipartisan support for significant new investments in improving mental health support for students as part of an effort to make future mass shootings less likely. The Trump administration, however, recently decided to block $1 billion in grants for student mental health programs, concluding that the programs to reduce gun violence in schools were no longer in “the best interest of the federal government.”
A week before these revelations came to light, The Washington Post reported that Trump’s Justice Department had also canceled hundreds of grants to community organizations and local governments, “including funding for gun-violence prevention programs.”
This dovetailed with a New York Times report on the Republican administration moving forward with plans to “roll back an array of gun control measures,” while creating “a path for people with criminal convictions to own guns again.”
When thinking about the differences between the president’s first term and his second, this issue is high on the list. As I noted in my first book (see chapter 8), it was in the wake of a mass school shooting in February 2018 when Trump held a televised, hourlong discussion with a group of lawmakers from both parties about gun violence. As part of the conversation, then-Vice President Mike Pence raised the prospect of empowering law enforcement to take weapons away from those who’ve been reported to be potentially dangerous, though he added that he expected to see “due process so no one’s rights are trampled.”
“Take the firearms first and then go to court,” Trump interjected. At the same event, the president endorsed a law enforcement model in which police officers confiscated some Americans’ guns “whether they had the right or not.” When Republicans derailed those negotiations and nothing passed, there was another mass shooting a year later, at which point Trump again wanted a gun bill, including restrictions on assault rifles — which, according to multiple accounts, was one of his long-sought goals. In other words, as recently as his first term, the president at least briefly sought ambitious gun reforms, up to and including extrajudicial gun confiscations. A couple of months ago, after a deadly on-campus shooting at Florida State University, Trump said, “I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment.” But in the recent past, he had those same responsibilities, and it didn’t stop him from endorsing measures that might’ve saved lives. Now, the Republican and his administration not only don’t want to bother, they’re also moving aggressively in the opposite direction. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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