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U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert declared that the “time has come” to abolish the federal agency within the Department of Justice that regulates laws related to alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives.

The Colorado Republican introduced legislation to shutter the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) last week just as Congress reconvened for its 119th term and weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Boebert and her GOP colleagues have long railed against the agency and the congresswoman called out the ATF in the last congressional session for having too much authority.

“There’s been a lot of talk about defunding the ATF, even abolishing the agency altogether, and I’m still here waiting to hear a good reason why the ATF should remain an agency at all,” Boebert said from the House floor in February 2023.

“Instead of providing regulations that keep our communities safe, this agency has made our communities more dangerous by wandering weapons to the cartels. Operation Fast and Furious exposed the recklessness of the ATF, how little regard they have for the rule of law, and Americans have had a hard time viewing these agencies and their rules as legitimate,” she said at the time.

The bill, H.R. 129, is another in the effort to shut done the agency which has been accused of regulatory overreach by lawmakers and gun rights groups.

“The ATF is a disaster,” Rep. Eric Burlison told Fox News Digital in November.

“For decades, they’ve been a disaster agency, and they’ve been violating the Second Amendment. Every time they try to get involved, they mess things up. They have a long history of mistakes,” the Missouri Republican said at the time. “This is an agency that just continues to violate citizens’ rights and Second Amendment rights, and I think that at the end of the day, this agency needs to be abolished.”

“People who don’t think that law enforcement, including ATF, has anything to do with driving down violent crime are just wrong—it didn’t happen by accident,” Steven Dettelbach, serving as ATF director since 2022, told The New York Times last month.

“What I am concerned about is that is that people will take their eye off the ball, that they’ll either get complacent or political, or some combination of those things…That will result in more people getting killed,” he contended.

Dettelbach will reportedly be leaving office on January 18, two days before Trump is inaugurated.

Frieda Powers
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