Guns and Poses: A Brief History of the ATF

From busting bootleggers to being branded as “jack-booted government thugs”

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Related: How the gun lobby forced the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to use analog tools to enforce gun laws in a digital world.

1934

Popperfoto/Getty Images

Responding to Tommy-gun-toting bootleggers, Congress passes the National Firearms Act, the first federal gun law. It requires the registration of machine guns and short-barreled shotguns.

1968

Following a wave of violent crime and high-profile assassinations, LBJ signs the Gun Control Act, which forbids ex-felons and the mentally ill from owning guns. It operates on the honor system: Buyers simply fill out a form stating that they’re not prohibited from owning a gun.

1981

The NRA releases It Can’t Happen Here, a movie attacking the ATF, the main enforcer of federal gun laws. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) calls the bureau a “jack-booted group of fascists who are a shame and a disgrace to our country.” President Ronald Reagan, who had promised to abolish the ATF, proposes handing its duties to the Secret Service. The proposal dies after the NRA objects.

1986

The Firearm Owners’ Protection Act rolls back part of the Gun Control Act and outlaws the creation of a national gun registry. The NRA calls it “the law that saved gun rights.”

1993

 

Peter Silva/ZUMA Press

A deadly ATF raid leads to the disastrous siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the gun lobby renews its assault on the bureau. Congress passes the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which requires background checks for anyone buying guns from licensed dealers.

1995

 

Reuters

The Oklahoma City bombing is carried out by Timothy McVeigh, once seen at a gun show selling an ATF cap with bullet holes in it. NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre decries “jack-booted government thugs” and “federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black stormtrooper uniforms.”

2003

Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) unveils measures that restrict the ATF’s use of trace data for crime guns and mandate the destruction of background-check data within 24 hours of a gun sale. Congress has renewed the Tiahrt Amendments every year since.

2006

The NRA successfully lobbies for an amendment to the Patriot Act that makes the ATF director subject to Senate confirmation. The only permanent ATF director since then served less than two years.

2011

 

Ron Sachs/CNP/ZUMA Press

Hundreds of weapons are smuggled into Mexico and go missing as part of the ATF’s Fast and Furious operation. LaPierre claims the botched sting “facilitated a crime to further [a] gun control political agenda.”

2014

Following a four-year hiring freeze and stagnant funding, the ATF’s staffing hits its lowest level in nearly a decade.

2016

President Barack Obama calls for 200 new ATF agents, but Congress refuses.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate