Matt Gaetz introduces bill to 'abolish' the ATF
WASHINGTON (TND) — Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., announced Wednesday that he introduced a bill to “abolish” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
In a press release announcing the new bill, which will be referred to the House Judiciary Committee, Gaetz said House Republicans had the ATF in their “crosshairs.”
The bill came a few days after the ATF posted a “final rule” regarding firearm components that can be used to convert pistols into short-barreled rifles. The rule asserted that converted pistols with barrels less than 16-inches will now be subject to rules and regulations under the National Firearms Act, according to a Department of Justice press release.
But Gaetz and others have insisted that the new rule unfairly punishes disabled gun owners and veterans who rely on these components, known as stabilizing braces, to be able to fire their weapons.
Gaetz told Fox News the move to tighten laws around these braces was the “final straw.”
“The continued existence of the ATF is increasingly unwarranted based on the actions they’re taking to convert otherwise law-abiding people into felons,” Gaetz told Fox News in a phone interview. “My bill would abolish the ATF. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to try defunding the ATF. If that doesn’t work, we're going to target the individual bureaucrats at the top of the ATF who have exceeded their authority in rulemaking. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to take a meat cleaver to the statutes that the ATF believes broadly authorize their actions.”
But the ATF does assert the new rule will not affect stabilizing braces “that are objectively designed and intended as a ‘stabilizing brace’ for use by individuals with disabilities.”
However, Gaetz told Fox News that the people at the ATF making these rules don’t fundamentally understand firearms.
“I think they are under the flawed conception that a stabilizing brace increases the lethality or danger of a pistol,” Gaetz told Fox News. “It seems the ATF is on a snipe hunt for regulatory action that virtue signals to the anti-gun left, but that has no real practical safety impact on Americans.”
Gaetz’s bill has not picked up any co-sponsors yet, but he told Fox News there is “broad support” among Republicans to challenge the ATF’s actions. He added that he expects in the new Congress that “ATF bureaucrats” will be called to testify in front of the Judiciary Committee.
“We’re hearing this very loudly from our constituents, and the reason I filed this bill is, frankly, I think that the ATF should have to justify their existence at all,” Gaetz concluded.
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