ATF Rules Reflect an Agency Captured by the Gun Industry

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is the sole federal agency responsible for overseeing the gun industry and ensuring that licensed gun makers, importers, and dealers — known as Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) — follow the law. But the ATF recently announced 32 proposed and final rules designed to deregulate the gun industry, and a closer look at the rules, published last week, shows that the agency has given up much of its regulatory and oversight responsibilities under President Trump to instead help the industry sell more guns to more people.

In a recent podcast, Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry’s trade association, said that the ATF had reached out to his organization for input on the rules before they were published.¹The Reload, “How ATF’s New Regulations Change the Gun Industry (Ft. ‪@TheNSSF‬’s Larry Keane),” YouTube, May 11, 2026, https://youtu.be/38nMFltYDsY, at 4:29. He also described the “phenomenal” package of rules as being “a lot of stuff the industry’s been asking for or needs.”²Ibid, at 4:10.

Opening New Markets for the Gun Industry

In many of the proposed rules, the ATF explicitly says that they are designed to benefit the gun industry. For example, the ATF estimates that 3.28 million gun buyers would take advantage of one of the agency’s most troubling proposals: allowing FFLs to ship guns directly to a buyer’s door without visiting a brick-and-mortar location, in what is known as a “non-over-the-counter” (NOTC) transaction. The ATF states that the rule is focused on “reducing restrictions and removing barriers” for gun sales, and acknowledges that “[c]onvenience is certainly a factor for some firearms purchasers, such as repeat purchasers” — echoing language used by online retailers like Donald Trump Jr.’s GrabAGun.

The ATF also says that not moving forward with the proposal “would hold FFLs back from expanding legitimate sales options.” The rule appears to align with one from the U.S. Postal Service that would undo a 99-year-old ban on mailing handguns.

The agency has also proposed a new, significantly shorter version of the Form 4473, the decades-old firearm transaction record, that dispenses with several questions used to stop illegal straw purchases and allows a gun dealer to determine if the customer can legally purchase the gun, to “make it easier and faster for respondents and licensees to complete the form.” The updated form will also make it harder for investigators to determine that the FFL had a hand in the illegal sale.

Another ATF proposal would double the length of time that a background check for a completed Form 4473 is valid for, creating the risk that a person will become prohibited in that period but still be able to purchase a firearm. Incredibly, the ATF states that the proposal increases the risk that a prohibited person will obtain a firearm and use it “to inflict mass casualties” when they “would have been prevented under the current baseline requirement to renew the background check.”

But the ATF is also proposing that gun dealers can destroy those forms, as well as their inventory records, after 20 or 30 years — removing any chance law enforcement has of tracing older crime guns and solving crimes committed with them. The ATF says doing so will help “FFLs faced with the costs of retaining” those records, and help alleviate the “administrative burdens on the firearms industry.”

Incredibly, the ATF states that the proposal increases the risk that a prohibited person will obtain a firearm and use it ‘to inflict mass casualties’ when they ‘would have been prevented under the current baseline requirement to renew the background check.’

The ATF Prioritizes Dangerous Weapons

Another ATF proposal would rescind the agency’s own 2023 “arm brace” rule, which was finalized to stop gun makers from selling easily concealed short-barreled AR-15s, AK-47s, and other assault weapons as “pistols” — instead of short-barreled rifles that must be registered under the National Firearms Act (NFA) — when fitted with arm braces that can be used like shoulder stocks. While brace-equipped AR-15s have been used in at least five mass shootings, the ATF says that rescinding its prior rule would allow “small entities” to “experience an increase in revenue due to weapons with brace configuration no longer undergoing NFA requirements such as enhanced background checks.”

The ATF predicts gun makers will “likely ramp up manufacturing and sales of these firearms in the public sphere” as a result of the proposal — while simultaneously admitting that the guns “pose an increased public safety problem.”

Additionally, the ATF is proposing to simplify the process for spouses to apply for NFA weapons like silencers, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and other concealable firearms; cross state lines with them, and notify local law enforcement of one’s intent to make or purchase them. Taken together, these proposals may make NFA weapons more appealing to customers and easier to own, again benefiting the gun industry.

The ATF predicts gun makers will ‘likely ramp up manufacturing and sales of these firearms in the public sphere’ as a result of the proposal — while simultaneously admitting that the weapons ‘pose an increased public safety problem.’

In its rule revising regulatory “machine gun” definitions to remove all mentions of bump stocks as a result of the Supreme Court’s Cargill decision, the ATF wrote that gun owners will benefit from “future production and sales” of bump stocks as well as “more options for firearms accessories in the future.” Not once in the entire rule does the ATF mention the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, in which a gunman used over a dozen AR-15s equipped with bump stocks to kill 60 concertgoers and wound over 400 others.

Other ATF rules would make it easier for FFLs to acquire machine guns, giving them “more flexibility in complying with statutes and existing regulatory standards,” and import the parts used to build assault weapons, undoing a Gun Control Act provision banning the importation of “non-sporting” firearms. The ATF says that rule, developed after receiving “inquiries from importers,” would “remove costs and burdens on the regulated industry,” provide “greater resources” for gun makers, and “ultimately reduce their overall cost to manufacture a firearm.”

Even the proposed and final rules that seem less significant — like one that would “allow importers to sell training rounds for retail or commercial use as well as law enforcement purposes” with fewer restrictions — are designed to benefit the gun industry. Making it easier to import training ammunition, according to the ATF, would benefit consumers, “who would see lower prices,” as well as importers, “who would see higher profits.”