BLUF: (YAY!)
The departure of Hicks was bemoaned by anti-gun activist groups such as Brady who characterized the sacking as “chilling.”

30 Senators Tell ATF to Get With Trump 2A Agenda as Agency’s Top Lawyer Canned

A group of 30 Republican lawmakers on Thursday “strongly encouraged” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to begin scrapping Biden-era anti-gun rules.

In a five-page letter to ATF Deputy Director Marvin G. Richardson— who has been leading the agency since the recent departure of the bureau’s avowedly anti-gun Director Steve Dettelbach– the senators urged the regulator to align its policies with “President Trump’s Second Amendment priorities” as laid out in his recent Executive Order.

Specifically, the letter calls on ATF officials to work with Attorney General Pam Bondi to quickly identify and rescind policies that allow “unlawful firearms regulations” to include the agency’s “Engaged in the Business,” “Pistol Brace,” and “Ghost Gun” rules as well as its “Zero Tolerance” policy under which ATF has revoked the licenses of FFLs over minor bookkeeping violations.

The senators said, “We urge you to immediately align ATF’s rules and policies with the President’s strong support for the Second Amendment.”

Further, the GOP lawmakers took aim at the agency’s huge cache of decades-old gun dealer records, urging ATF to destroy the reportedly hundreds of millions of ATF Form 4473 firearm transaction forms and allow FFLs to also destroy such records over 20 years old. The Biden administration had issued a rule that such records had to be maintained forever, creating what many argue is the foundation of a backdoor gun registry.

“These records have no particular law enforcement value but do contain the sensitive information of millions of law-abiding gun owners,” the Senators said. “Ending the policy of retaining these very old records will save money for the American taxpayer and counteract ATF’s unconstitutional rule change.”

When it comes to processing NFA forms such as transfers on suppressors and the creation of short-barreled rifles, the lawmakers urged the ATF to continue to speed up the process which can still take weeks or even months in some circumstances to approve transfers.

“There is no reason that the right to purchase a firearm should be so greatly delayed; a right delayed is a right denied,” reads the letter.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade industry group for the American firearms industry, welcomed the move from Capitol Hill and urged ATF to heed the lawmakers’ call.

“The previous administration wielded the ATF like a hammer and anvil against the firearm industry, turning the regulatory agency into one that punished and carried out a radical gun control agenda designed to diminish Second Amendment rights,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “The rules specifically identified by the senators were designed to punish the firearm industry and usher in gun control outside of the legislative process. NSSF has protested these rules ever since they were announced and is heartened that the Trump administration and the Senate are acting quickly to protect Second Amendment rights and the lawful firearm industry. NSSF encourages ATF to act quickly on Senator Cornyn’s letter and enact these reforms to roll back unconstitutional overreaches brought by the Biden administration.”

The letter was created by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and signed by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and U.S. Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), James Lankford (R-Okla.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kan.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Jim Banks (R-Ind.), and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). Many of these are co-sponsors of the SHUSH Act and/or the Hearing Protection Act, both bills that would reform how suppressors are regulated.

ATF’s Chief Counsel Fired

The same day that the open letter was fired off to ATF leadership, it was widely reported that Pamela Hicks, a Justice Department attorney who had been serving as the agency’s Chief Counsel since 2021, had been terminated.

Moreover, the pro-2A group Gun Owners of America asserted that she had been “escorted out of the Washington, D.C. headquarters,” and had in the past four years “oversaw the enforcement of every Biden infringement of the Second Amendment since taking the position in 2021.”

The departure of Hicks was bemoaned by anti-gun activist groups such as Brady who characterized the sacking as “chilling.”