On Tuesday, in the harshest action, Reps. Eric Burlison (R-MO) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) made good on a promise to reintroduce legislation to kill the 52-year-old agency, claiming it duplicates what other federal and state agencies do.

“They’re just duplicative,” Burlison said in an interview. “They overlap a lot of our other agencies, the FBI, that’s really under their scope. You have the U.S. Marshals Service. There’s a lot of agencies that provide the same level of service.”

“There’s a lot of things that are being done by the ATF that are not about keeping people safe. It’s just about making everyone who wants to own a firearm make our lives miserable,” the lawmaker from southwest Missouri said.

Just like I did last Congress, I’m once again introducing legislation this week to ABOLISH THE ATF! pic.twitter.com/txpEt9EmRq

— Rep. Eric Burlison (@RepEricBurlison) January 6, 2025

The agency, for example, has been criticized for flip-flopping on the legality of gun accessories and picking on gun dealers for making clerical mistakes.

“Those decisions need to be left to the states. Let the taxpayers of your state who are paying your local sheriff, your local highway patrol and police, let them be the ones that tell that local community how to be safe,” he added.

Burlison is also eager to kill the National Firearms Act, an Al Capone-era law that requires the regulation, taxation, and ban on some firearms and accessories, such as suppressors.

Meanwhile, seven Republican senators have called on ATF to pause all rulemaking until Trump takes office. The White House has been criticized for moving to implement eleventh-hour rules and regulations that are aimed at tying up Trump’s deregulation plans.

ATF Director Steve Dettelbach has already announced plans to step down before Trump takes office. Major Second Amendment groups, such as the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the industry’s representative, are offering the names of ATF directors they would prefer.

NSSF has been urging the incoming administration to reform and rein in ATF.

“ATF needs leadership that is dedicated to performing the mission without political prejudice. It cannot be a tool of special-interest groups to push an anti-gun and frankly unconstitutional agenda,” NSSF spokesman Mark Oliva said.

Members of the .@ATFHQ Victims Assistance Program are part of a federal, state, and local team establishing a multi-agency victim services program that will support victims, families, and witnesses to the Bourbon Street terrorist attack on New Year’s day. pic.twitter.com/EWlGjkUy9c

— ATF New Orleans (@ATFNewOrleans) January 4, 2025

Eliminating the agency is unlikely, especially since it has been in the news for its part in investigating the weekend killings in New Orleans and the Tesla truck explosion in Las Vegas.

Oliva said that focusing on the agency should be the new administration’s goal. “The ATF performs essential law enforcement and regulatory functions, and the firearm industry knows that when good leadership is present, good policies follow. The firearm industry wants to be a productive partner with the ATF.”

In fact, it partners with ATF for gun sales programs.

But Burlison noted that the agency has also been involved in multiple scandals, such as trading with Mexican cartels in Operation Fast and Furious and the Waco and Ruby Ridge crises.

SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS

He hopes that the legislation, offered in the past in the House by former Rep. Matt Gaetz, will force Washington to discuss reforms and close the ATF.

“I think it’s important to have the conversation,” Burlison said. “At the end of the day, a topic like this, the more you talk about it, the more you educate people, the more commonsense it becomes, and then eventually, there becomes a tipping point where you can finally achieve the goal.”