Trump's Trials - Trump administration targets ATF, with plans to cut jobs and ease gun restrictions

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

The Trump administration has set its sights on restructuring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, including plans to loosen gun regulations and significantly reduce its budget. NPR's Meg Anderson reports.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Depp. We're going to be doing all sorts of things nobody ever thought was even possible. President Trump has brought back strength to the White House. We can't just ignore the president's desires. This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode of Trump's Terms, we bring you NPR's latest coverage of the 47th president. With a focus on actions and policies he is pursuing on his own terms and in the process, taking the presidency into uncharted territory.

Today's story starts right after this. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies. With WISE, you can send, spend, or receive money across borders, all at a fair exchange rate, no markups or hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit Wyse.com. T's and C's apply. The House of Representatives has approved a White House request to claw back two years of previously approved funding

for public media. The rescissions package now moves on to the Senate. This move poses a serious threat to local stations and public media as we know it. Please take a stand for public media today at GoACPR.org. Thank you. You know those things you shout at the radio or maybe even at this very NPR podcast?

On NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we actually say those things on the radio and on the podcast. We're rude across all media. We think the news can take it. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Leila Faldon. I'm Amartinez. The Trump administration is restructuring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Officials say they plan to make changes to gun regulations and slash the agency's budget. NPR criminal justice reporter Meg Anderson is here to break down some of those changes. Meg, so what do we know about what's happening at the ATF? Yeah, well first as a reminder, ATF is the country's main regulator of the gun industry. They investigate illegal gun trafficking, they inspect gun dealers to make sure they're following the law. And we know that two weeks ago, DOGE began working with ATF on around 50 regulatory changes. Many of them aim to loosen gun regulations. That's according to people I spoke with who are familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. The changes

include things like making a background check for a firearm purchase valid for 60 days instead of 30. Another allows gun dealers to destroy records after 20 years rather than keeping them indefinitely. And the people I spoke to told me, you know, if you look at many of these changes in isolation, they might not seem huge, but taken together, a pattern of gun deregulation begins to emerge. Yeah, the Department of Justice, they oversee the ATF. They've also proposed a 25% cut to ATF's budget the next year. What would that do to the agency? One really big thing it would do is cut more than 500 investigators. That's according to the DOJ's

proposed budget. Those are the people that conduct inspections of gun dealers. Pam Hicks was chief counsel at the agency until February when she was fired. She said those inspectors help ensure gun dealers are keeping accurate records and that is key to solving violent crime. And the reason why it's critical that they be accurate is so that people who shouldn't have guns don't have guns. And if you can't trace the gun because of crappy records, then that's a problem for law enforcement. The agency declined my request for an interview, but in a statement, ATF said it is trying to reduce, quote, unnecessary regulatory burdens so it can focus its enforcement on violent criminals.

How do police feel about these cuts? Yeah, well, ATF is the only agency in the country with the ability to trace guns involved in crimes. And so police use that information from ATF all the time. The agency keeps a database of the markings left on a bullet or casing after it's been fired in a crime. It's basically like a gun's fingerprint. I spoke with Brandon Del Pozo about this. He used to be the police chief in Burlington, Vermont. The ability to show that a gun was involved in more than one crime, that a gun appeared at this crime scene,

then appeared on that rooftop, helps police conduct very effective investigations. We need that to be well funded. Del Pozo said the administration's cuts to this agency are directly at odds with its claim that it's tough on crime. So what happens now? So the administration has said it's not done with its plans to transform the agency, and Congress is getting involved too.

The big tax and spending bill the Senate passed yesterday, that includes a provision that removes the tax on gun silencers. It's a move that gun control advocates strongly oppose. That's NPR's Meg Anderson. Meg, thank you. You're welcome. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down

the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks as always to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detro. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR. On NPR's Thru Line, school teachers are going to be the ones that rebuild our society in a way that is more cohesive.

Basically where soldiers set down their arms, school teachers need to pick up their books. How the US Department of Education tried to fix a divided nation. Listen to Thru Line wherever you get your podcasts. Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR's easy breezy laid back Pop Culture podcast has brought you the best in culture for the past 15 years. That means we spent the last 15 years talking about what exactly? Bad reality TV, actually good Marvel movies. Actually awful Marvel movies.

Reboots, pop music. Prestige dramas. Netflix slop. That's 15 years of buzzy pop culture chit chat and here's to many more with you along for the ride. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.