The ATF Is Getting Crushed Under The Weight Of The Gun Industry

The U.S. gun industry has grown explosively over the past decade, leaving the federal agency responsible for regulating it, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, struggling to keep up with the rising flow of guns into the civilian market. And if the ATF stumbles, it could mean serious consequences for public safety.

Production at U.S. gun companies more than doubled under the Obama administration, with manufacturing totals going from 5.5 million firearms in 2009 to 11.5 million in 2016, the latest year for which federal data are available. Gun sales appeared to go up by similar margins over that period. At the same time, the number of federally licensed gun dealers increased by about 9,000, topping out at 56,754 in 2016, while the number of federally licensed firearms manufacturers more than tripled, according to the ATF.

The ATF’s budget, which includes funds for monitoring the network of gun manufacturers, wholesalers and dealers, has increased only slightly amid the recent boom, and it has remained unchanged at $1.25 billion over the last few years. The agency hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed director since 2015, and, as The New York Times reported on Thursday, the National Rifle Association has been part of a campaign to ensure that the ATF remains a small agency grappling with a wide-reaching set of duties, including prosecuting gun crimes, combating gun violence and trafficking, and regulating firearm commerce in the U.S.

“As an organization, personnel wise, ATF is smaller than the Broward County Sheriff’s department, which would be law enforcement in the Miami area,” said David Chipman, a former ATF agent who now serves as senior policy adviser for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “The last aircraft carrier cost $13 billion, so that’d be like 10 years of ATF budgets.”

Source: huffingtonpost