Trump administration officials have dismissed senior staff members at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives who supported gun control under past administrations.
Eric Epstein, who formerly served as senior policy counsel at the ATF, has now been dismissed, according to a report from Gun Owners of America, which said he was responsible for gun control like the zero tolerance policy and the “engaged in the business” of selling firearms rule.
Epstein was likewise responsible for revoking exemptions from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for concealed carriers in Michigan, Minnesota, and Alabama.
Gun Owners of America also revealed earlier last month that Marvin Richardson, the former deputy director and chief operating officer of the ATF, has been forced into retirement, with the group saying that he was “awarded medals for his involvement in the siege at Waco, Texas.” They added that Richardson was “the driving force behind the pistol brace ban” from the ATF.
Second Amendment advocates have often criticized the ATF for enforcing unconstitutional gun control measures, often in an overzealous way, and have called for the end of the agency.
FBI Director Kash Patel, who was also the Acting Director of the ATF until Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll was selected to take the role, previously announced that he would move some 1,000 agents from the ATF to the FBI, substantially reducing the size of the gun control agency.
Patel expected to send a few hundred ATF agents to assist with securing the southern border to function in the capacity of FBI agents. The approximately 1,000 agents from the ATF would all receive temporary reassignments as FBI agents with no end date for their new responsibilities.
ATF spokeswoman Ashlee Sherill remarked in a statement that “the ATF will temporarily assign approximately 150 agents from existing field offices to other ATF field offices, where they will continue serving as ATF agents to support the surge initiative” to monitor the southern border.
