ATF Director Under Trump Will Still Be Directing Unconstitutional Agency

A.T.F. Braces for a Likely Rollback of Its Gun-Control Effort

December 23, 2024 By David Codrea

“A.T.F. Braces for a Likely Rollback of Its Gun-Control Efforts,” The New York Times reported ruefully in mid-December. “President-elect Donald J. Trump is almost certain to choose a gun-rights advocate as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or to simply leave the job vacant.” The post has been vacant before, lots of times. Per NPR at the time of his nomination hearing, “If confirmed, [current Director Steve] Dettelbach would be the first permanent director of ATF in seven years. The position often faces pushback from gun rights groups and has only had one Senate-confirmed director in the past 16 years.” That was B. Todd Jones who took over after Acting Director Ken Melson had presided over an agency embroiled in the Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking” scandal. In the time since Jones left in 2015 for a better paying gig with the NFL, four acting heads filled the chair until Dettelbach won out after the Biden administration’s initial pick, ATF Agent and zealous Giffords flack David Chipman, was rejected by the Senate after loud and sustained gun rights and industry objections.

There was one other prominent failure to launch before Dettelbach, during Donald Trump’s first term. In 2019, he nominated Kenneth Charles Canterbury, Jr., past president of the Fraternal Order of Police who, despite the promise that, “I take a back seat to no one in my reverence for the Second Amendment” and gushing praise from then NRA-ILA head Chris Cox, turns out to be an unacceptable pick who had supported Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, Eric Holder for Attorney General, and presided over an FOP that opposed national concealed carry reciprocity. “Those said to be under consideration are: Blake Masters, a far-right conservative in Arizona who is close to the financier Peter Thiel and who mounted a failed bid for a House seat; Peter J. Forcelli, a former bureau official who wrote a book on the “Fast and Furious” scandal; Larry Keane, the head of the gun manufacturers’ trade association; and several current and former top A.T.F. officials, including Robert Cekada, Daniel Board and Rick Dressler,” the NYT article says.

Let’s look at the top names, Masters, Forcelli, and Keane, and see what clues their pasts can point us toward what we could expect.

First, absent from the list of likely picks is self-nominated “AK Guy” and narrowly defeated Congressional candidate Brandon Herrera, whom many gun rights activists have cheered for because he has promised to “hack, slash, and cripple that agency in ways it could never recover from.” He may be a popular choice, but a quick glance at his LinkedIn profile (“Gun Manufacturer/YouTube Personality”) doesn’t really speak to the experience required to effectively manage specialized employees in complex legal environments. Then again, take a look at half the Democrats in Congress…

Blake Masters

“Blake Masters under consideration to become Trump’s top gun regulator,” global news platform Semafor reports. The venture capitalist “met with the incoming president’s transition team on Thursday and is interested in helming the regulatory agency.” While “he lost two races for Congress in Arizona, this past fall and in 2022, while running as a Trump loyalist… Masters may appeal to pro-gun Republicans, though, having campaigned as a pro-gun Senate candidate.”

Pete Forcelli

Former agent and whistleblower Pete Forcelli is the candidate with the most experience in how ATF works, its internal weaknesses and institutional corruption, and the problematic relationship with the Department of Justice sandbagging investigations into serious criminals, which is where he would put his focus. In the interests of full disclosure, I reviewed Forcelli’s book, The Deadly Path: How Operation Fast & Furious and Bad Lawyers Armed Mexican Cartels, and interviewed him about his career, his investigation into the smuggling of grenades into Mexico being sabotaged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and more. To his credit, he knew his words would be judged by a gun owner readership and he pledged from the start that no questions would be off limits.

Larry Keane

NSSF’s Larry Keane may be the most experienced organizational man, and one with the best insights into industry concerns and the legal environment his member companies operate in. The thing is, while they can closely match, gunmaker and gun owner priorities can be two different things. Keane proudly hailing FixNICS, NSSF’s industry protection-motivated “partnership” (“The firearm industry's campaign to strengthen the background check system”) leaves Second Amendment absolutists wondering why we’d want someone who gushes over prior restraint infringements that open the door to gun registration.

Alternatively, Trump could select no one and leave an “acting” caretaker in charge. Just look at Ken Melson and Fast and Furious to see the problems weak and uncertain leadership can encourage. Whomever the president selects to head ATF will need to focus on dangerous criminals (but don’t forget that even that can still usurp Constitutional authority for a federal government that was supposed to confine itself to piracy, counterfeiting, and treason) and put the brakes on all the “rules” and changes to previous classifications. It’s a no-win assignment until the laws are changed, so the best we can hope for is ATF doing minimal damage and knocking off its mania for redefining parts as firearms, inciting the media mob to spook the herd on “ghost guns,” destroying FFLs for paperwork glitches, and persecuting gun owners. As far as positive changes are concerned, a nice place to start would be to knock off the stonewalling ATF is notorious for—from defying Congressional inquiries to answering Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The new director could also advise on orders to rescind, such as George H.W. Bush’s import ban on 43 types of semiautos deemed not compliant with the 1968 Gun Control Act’s “sporting use” requirement, and the previous Trump export ban on over 32 round magazines. The new guy needs to understand all this and have the AG and the president‘s ear to make sure they do, and to restrain their past-demonstrated impulses to ignore the words “shall not be infringed.”

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About the Author

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. In addition to being a regular featured contributor for Firearms News and AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.