BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has joined with five other organizations, including the Second Amendment Foundation, in a letter to Attorney General Pamela Bondi, urging her to abandon a proposal to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
In the letter, signed by CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, the groups urge Bondi “to consider abandoning this proposal and continue to operate ATF as a standalone agency of narrow purpose and limited resource, until such time as all unconstitutional federal gun laws are repealed and the ATF can be abolished.”
CCRKBA and SAF are joined by Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, Second Amendment Law Center and the California Rifle & Pistol Association.
“The ATF has not been friendly to the Second Amendment or America’s law-abiding gun owners, especially over the past four years,” said Gottlieb. “The agency has an unsavory history which includes such debacles as Waco, Ruby Ridge and Operation Fast & Furious, and this proposal would open the door to more abusive behavior because the agency budget would increase and ATF would have access to DEA’s greater resources and staffing. As we state in the letter, the result would be a ‘super-entity of gun control enforcers’ which could be used by future anti-gun administrations “to target the Second Amendment community in unprecedented ways.”
The letter offers a dozen reasons why such a merger must never be allowed in a free Republic, and makes clear that the proposal “does not align with President Trump’s policy agenda.”
“The proposed merger would effectively undermine ATF accountability,” Gottlieb observed, “and result in more agency efforts to erode Second Amendment rights. Such a scenario is unthinkable in a nation whose Constitution and Bill of Rights specifically protects the right to keep and bear arms from government infringement. Instead of providing the ATF with additional funding and the cover of a merger, the ATF should remain as is, with limited funding and scope, under the watchful eye of Congress, which can limit its authority, repeal the onerous federal gun laws it enforces, and even close its doors.”