Deadly shootings are a sad fact of life in the United States, with 165 mass shootings (defined as “a shooting that injured or killed four or more people”) taking place in 2025 already. Uniquely for first-world developed nations, Americans are forced to live under the specter of everyday gun violence: was that “pop pop” sound an engine backfiring or something far more sinister?
Well, that paranoia is about to get a whole lot worse, as the Trump regime is on a mission to slash and burn those responsible for ensuring guns don’t end up in the wrong hands. As reported by The New York Times, recently released budget documents indicate Trump wants to “defang and downsize” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as part of a plan to undo Biden-era firearms regulations.
NEWS: DOJ plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds — effectively ending federal oversight intended to prevent sales to criminals and straw purchasers, in the view of ATF staff. https://t.co/loaOiGrjI1
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) June 18, 2025
This would involve firing 541 of the 800 investigators whose job it is to check that gun dealers are not selling firearms to dangerous criminals, people with severe mental health disorders, and human traffickers.
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As per the report, these cuts would impact the “A.T.F.’s capacity to regulate the firearms and explosives industries by approximately 40 percent”. These would come on top of the Trump administration already weakening gun control laws by ending crackdowns on dealers who skip background checks and falsify records.
Relaxing gun regulations is going to be like pouring gasoline onto an open fire. It’s already absurdly easy for criminals to gain access to firearms in the United States, but now even the slight protection offered by the A.T.F. is set to be obliterated.
Unfortunately, chaos, crime, and the fear generated is precisely what the Trump regime wants to see. They know all too well that voters who’ve been victims of crimes or scared that they will become one will run into the arms of the “law and order” Republicans. They also know they won’t get the blame for this, as they can simply blame immigrants and/or ethnic minorities for any crime waves rather than their policies.
Or, on a more sinister note, perhaps “they want to make sure all their cult is well armed“. The idea of a second civil war is still unlikely, but with Trump sending the Marines into Los Angeles who knows? And, if it did come to that, millions of heavily armed MAGA fanatics peppered up and down the country are nothing to sniff at.
