The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives--more commonly known as the ATF--isn't exactly a favorite federal law enforcement of agency other than gun control activists. They like the fact that they've infested the agency like a fungal infection and have had success directing where the ATF goes.
But there have been efforts of late to end the agency entirely, folding it into the FBI, but that legislation hasn't really had a chance to go much of anywhere this year. It doesn't seem to matter.
After all, FBI Director Kash Patel, who also happens to be the acting ATF director, is moving ahead just the same.
FBI Director Kash Patel, who also serves as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has outlined plans to move as many as 1,000 ATF agents to the FBI, cutting ATF’s agents by more than a third, three people briefed on the plan told CNN.
The move represents a major cutback of the ATF, an agency that long has been in the crosshairs of gun rights groups that believe its work infringes on Second Amendment rights. The ATF has about 2,600 agents and more than 5,000 employees, a number that has remained largely unchanged for years.
The move is expected to begin with the reassignment of a couple hundred ATF agents to border-related criminal enforcement duty as FBI agents, one person briefed on the matter said.
After publication of this story and resulting pushback including from Republican allies, FBI officials began to back off aspects of their plan, according to a US official familiar with the matter.
First, I don't see why any Republican allies should be bent out of shape about this at all. First, it bolsters the effort at the southern border and it makes ATF agents have to actually work for a living, which is something it seems they don't do all that much.
Plus, it means they won't be able to waste time jamming up law-abiding gun owners and gun dealers over nonsense.
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But 1,000 agents is significant. There are only about 2,600 agents in total, so this is a good chunk of law-enforcement manpower being directed to the FBI. We know the anti-gun side will scream about this, especially because most of them aren't fans of border security in the first place, but I think there's more going on here.
See, the ATF's mission won't vanish if the agency were to disappear tomorrow. As noted previously, that would probably go to the FBI instead. By already assigning such a significant portion of the ATF's agents to border security with the FBI, it seems he's laying the groundwork for an eventual merger between the two organizations.
That might also just be wishful thinking on my part.
I do think that these supposed Republican allies need to be named and shamed for standing up for the ATF, especially when others could handle those duties and probably do them better than the ATF has.
Either way, I suspect this will be something worth monitoring as it develops. We should get a clearer indication of whether this actually means anything at all then.
