Analysis: ATF Shutdown Draws Backlash from Gun Groups [Member Exclusive]

The federal authorities shutdown has caught up with gun house owners and began a combat over the Trump Administration’s priorities.

This week, the gun trade and gun-rights activists raised the alarm about how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has stopped processing sure firearms purposes. Whereas the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has continued to function the Nationwide On the spot Felony Background Examine System (NICS) to maintain most gun gross sales going, the ATF is not issuing Nationwide Firearms Act (NFA) registrations or Firearms and Explosives Import Department (FEIB) licenses. The Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis (NSSF), the trade’s commerce group, known as on Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi (R.) to reassess her priorities and reopen processing.

“A proper delayed is a proper denied,” Larry Keane, the group’s basic counsel, stated within the letter. “Though NSSF understands that the federal government faces numerous troublesome selections throughout a shutdown relating to which capabilities are vital and should stay operational, a key consideration in making such selections have to be whether or not suspending an operation negatively impacts or prevents the train of the basic rights of Americans. The suspension of economic import permits and NFA type processing does simply that, by denying People the flexibility to acquire merchandise constitutionally protected by the Second Modification at some point of the continued authorities shutdown.”

Knox Williams, president of the American Suppressor Affiliation, stated the ATF might and may reinstate firearms processing regardless of the shutdown.

“ATF has the flexibility and the accountability to behave now,” he stated in an announcement. “Reclassifying NFA examiners as ‘excepted’ or important personnel would instantly restore the constitutionally protected proper of lawful gun house owners to finish their NFA purposes. Concurrently, it could shield 1000’s of American jobs.”

The skirmish between the Division of Justice (DOJ) and gun-rights activists is the second in as many weeks. Whereas the second Trump Administration has made a variety of strikes gun-rights activists have cheered, like submitting go well with in opposition to Los Angeles for delaying gun-carry allow licensing or arguing in opposition to state “assault weapons” bans, it hasn’t lived as much as all of President Donald Trump’s guarantees or the expectations of some activists. Bondi and the DOJ have been on the heart of the complaints, with a variety of latest authorized strikes leading to outrage and even a name for Trump to fireplace Bondi from gun-rights activists.

DOJ has observed the criticism and has been pushing again in opposition to all of it week on social media.

Nevertheless, the administration’s obvious priorities round staffing within the shutdown have created new issues. The DOJ and ATF didn’t reply to requests for touch upon the license processing, with ATF’s press e mail returning a message that it isn’t being monitored through the shutdown. The ATF’s web site features a message that it, like different DOJ web sites, is “not at present frequently up to date” as a result of “Democrats have shut down the federal government.”

The web site doesn’t present any additional perception into why the shutdown has led to the obvious pause in firearms licensing. The DOJ’s contingency plan appears to listing most ATF personnel as excepted and nonetheless on obligation. It says all ATF brokers engaged on felony investigations, all headquarters or analysis personnel who assist them, and all Business Operations Investigators who examine licensed sellers are excepted from furloughs.

That’s along with different federal regulation enforcement businesses that the administration has stored staffed up, together with immigration enforcement businesses which have performed high-profile and extremely controversial raids all through the nation.

The Trump Administration signaling that gun house owners are additional down the precedence listing dangers diminishing its standing with a key constituency. The longer NFA and FEIB processing stays offline, the more severe the influence on the gun trade and its clients.

“On a regular basis ATF’s NFA examiners are out of the workplace, increasingly stress mounts on a whole lot of small companies throughout the nation,” Williams stated. “With money movement all however turned off, many will quickly be pressured to chop hours, furlough staff, or shut down completely.”

“In 2024 alone, there have been over 5.5 million firearms imported into america, in addition to over 3.9 billion rounds of ammunition,” Keane wrote. “Halting this vital operation additionally hampers the flexibility of home firearms and ammunition producers to keep up manufacturing, as many depend on imported elements and unfinished elements as a part of their manufacturing processes, the import of which have to be authorized by ATF.”

Moreover, the pause might hinder the progress the ATF has remodeled the previous a number of years in bringing down processing occasions. In actual fact, it might create a backlog that hampers NFA gross sales and gun imports effectively after the shutdown ends.

“NSSF is anxious that halting the processing of economic NFA varieties throughout this authorities shutdown interval will hamper these substantial positive aspects, as ATF employees will face an amazing backlog of not solely Type 4s, but in addition Type 2s and 3s every time the federal government reopens– resulting in but additional pointless and unconstitutional delays within the train of those rights,” Keane wrote. “Such backlog is prone to be additional exacerbated by the anticipated surge in switch purposes for NFA gadgets within the new 12 months – as soon as the discount within the NFA switch tax to $0 takes impact.”

After all, whereas gun-rights activists are upset and additional inaction from the DOJ dangers fracturing their assist for the Trump Administration, they don’t appear poised to again Democrats (nor do the highest-profile Democrats appear to need their backing at this level). In actual fact, whereas they could be complaining concerning the Trump Administration’s funding priorities, the teams that’ve spoken out concerning the shutdown nonetheless primarily blame Democrats.

“By prolonging the federal government shutdown, Senate Democrats are trampling on the Second Modification rights of tens of millions of People,” Williams stated.

They’re additionally leaving open an easy path to getting again of their good graces, one thing they’ve completed earlier than and one thing the Trump Administration has taken them up on.

“This isn’t a partisan difficulty; it’s a win-win that might uphold the Structure whereas concurrently defending 1000’s of American jobs,” Williams stated.

“[W]e urge you to direct the ATF to instantly resume processing ATF Type 2 notifications, and Type 3 and 4 purposes, and to renew processing of economic firearms and ammunition imports,” Keane advised Bondi. “This motion would display the Division of Justice’s dedication to upholding the Structure, making certain the honest and equitable therapy of firearms house owners, and sustaining entry to safety-enhancing units already extensively accepted and responsibly used all through the nation.”