Last week, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirmed to The Reload that the agency’s director, Steve Dettelbach, will resign on January 18, days before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office. The ATF’s chief of public affairs, Kristina Mastropasqua, said the resignation was “typical in a transition, and consistent with the memorandum sent to all presidential appointees on Dec. 19.”
Last February, while on the campaign trail, Trump promised National Rifle Association members that he would “sack the radical gun-grabber Steve Dettelbach” on his first day in office.
In his resignation letter, ATF Director Dettelbach thanked President Biden, writing, “It was the honor of my professional career to serve at ATF in your Administration. As you said when nominating me to be ATF Director, ‘The mission of this agency isn’t controversial. It’s public safety.’ I have now seen the brave and talented people at ATF live out your words for years. And we have realized results.”
Dettelbach also noted that “the country has experienced two years of historic decreases in the violent crime rates, including drops in firearms related crime. That progress did not occur by accident. The heroic, talented and hard-working people at ATF, along with our many partners, fought hard and risked everything to gain that ground. And Americans are better off for it.”
the atf under dettelbach
Dettelbach was nominated in April 2022 and confirmed by the Senate in July 2022, becoming the first Senate-confirmed ATF director since 2015. As the ATF’s leader, Dettelbach helped implement the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and the Biden administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which tasked the ATF with revoking the licenses of gun dealers who willfully violate federal gun laws. Such “qualifying violations” include transferring a firearm to a prohibited person, failing to run a required background check, falsifying records, failing to respond to an ATF tracing request, or refusing to permit the ATF to conduct an inspection.
President Biden announced the “zero tolerance” policy in June 2021, but ATF data shows that gun dealer inspections and revocations did not increase substantially until after Dettelbach’s confirmation in July 2022 — to the chagrin of critics like the National Shooting Sports Foundation who claim that such willful violations of federal law are instead “minor infractions.”
During Dettelbach’s tenure, the ATF finalized rules to curtail ghost guns and short-barreled assault weapons equipped with arm braces — two gun industry innovations that took off when the ATF lacked a leader — as well as unlicensed gun dealing. Additionally, Dettelbach raised the alarm on “Glock switches” and other machine gun conversion devices (MCDs) showing up at crime scenes across the country, and helped establish “emerging threats” task forces to crack down on them.
Notably, under Dettelbach, the ATF hosted its first ever Gun Violence Survivors’ Summit, giving over 200 survivors of gun violence a chance to discuss how their lives have been impacted with members of law enforcement, U.S. attorneys, health care professionals, and victims advocates. To conclude the event, the ATF installed a permanent exhibit called the “Faces of Gun Violence” at its headquarters to honor those who were lost and remind ATF personnel of their lifesaving mission.
Dettelbach also oversaw five cross-jurisdictional strike forces to disrupt gun trafficking networks and published volumes two, three and four of the ATF’s National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA), providing valuable insights about gun trafficking in the U.S., including the top manufacturers of crime guns.
Further, Dettelbach helped open new ATF Crime Gun Intelligence Centers (CGICs) in Columbus and Cleveland, and announced another for Chicago, adding to the over 60 running nationwide. CGICs “bring together, under one roof, the expertise of firearm evidence examiners, intelligence analysts, and investigators to rapidly collect, analyze, and share information about guns used in violent crimes” and close cases in local communities. In May 2023, the ATF also opened a national CGIC training center in Wichita.
who will be the next atf director?
Trump has yet to name a replacement to head the ATF, but according to a recent New York Times interview, Dettelbach was “more concerned that Mr. Trump would appoint no one at all, creating a leadership void at the bureau akin to the seven-year stretch of interim directors that preceded his own appointment.”
The previous leadership void benefitted the gun industry. The ATF is known for being chronically under-resourced, and without a leader, it’s harder for the agency to make the case to congressional appropriators for additional funding and staff. As the ATF’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request to Congress noted, “With recent spikes in firearm-related violent crime, there has been a corresponding increase in demand for [the] ATF’s expertise and resources, including direct investigative response, enhanced regulatory oversight of firearm licensees, and support to law enforcement agencies.” Full funding and support for the ATF is critical to the ATF’s public safety mission, and strong leadership — like that which Dettelbach has demonstrated throughout his tenure as director — is necessary to ensure that the ATF, in partnership with state and local law enforcement, can protect the public from violent crime.
For example, the ATF needs the leadership and resources to prioritize and inspect gun dealers, but the ATF only inspects a fraction of the country’s tens of thousands of gun dealers each year. Before Dettelbach was appointed, the ATF developed a reputation for letting repeat offenders who racked up significant violations off the hook. Dettlebach helped change that.
In the New York Times interview, Dettelbach said, “What I am concerned about is that people will take their eye off the ball, that they’ll either get complacent or political, or some combination of those things,” leading to cutbacks at the ATF. “That will result in more people getting killed.”