The Attorney General Pam Bondi faces a bipartite backlash on a signal plan to merge the alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives with the Drug Direction Administration.
Liberals have opposed the unilateral measures of the Trump administration to dismantle, reduce, reorganize and reuse the agencies authorized by the Congress since the president took office – and the response to the expected ATF -DEA merger was not different. The plan has particularly alarmed liberals, such as the president of EveryTown for the safety of firearms, who are concerned about the government’s ability to apply firearms if Trump followed with reported plans to reduce hundreds of investigators.
A Reuters report in mid-May presented some of the challenges posed by the plan:
A merger of ATF and DEA would represent one of the greatest reshuffles of the Ministry of Justice since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This would also have a difficult task for the Ministry of Justice to transparently trying to combine the complex role of DEA in the regulation of pharmacies, doctors and drug manufacturers, as well as the responsibility of the ATF to regulate the firearms industry.
During a hearing earlier this week, Democratic representative Rosa Delauro grilled over the planned cuts while the two debated from the bottom of the merger. Delauro asked how one or the other agency could pay for its functions better than it currently does if the Trump administration offers discounts of their two budgets. Bondi argued that the merger was undertaken in the name of efficiency. “Everyone knows, everyone sitting here knows that firearms and drugs go together,” she said.
But a number of large conservative firearm groups are not too interested in the proposal either. During his exchange with Delauro, Bondi said that “ATF agents will not knock on the doors of the owners of legal weapons in the middle of the night asking them questions about their weapons.” This may have been a nod to the pro-tuning groups which sent to Bondi a letter expressing their opposition to the plan on the concerns that it “would create a super-entity of the Applicators of Control of Firearms and would allow future administrations to target the community of the second amendment in an unprecedented manner”.
“This does not align with the political agenda of President Trump,” wrote the groups, “and this is certainly not what the president was elected with the help of up -to -date owners.” The Foundation of the Second Amendment, a conservative firefront defense group, coordinated the letter and sent it to Bondi in early June. The group refused the letter to its X account after Bondi’s testimony and urged it to reconsider the merger.
It is rare to see Liberals like Delauro, a supporter of complete arms security legislation reasons To oppose, the administration plan certainly differs. But fundamentally, this decision of the rise in eyebrows generates a clear bipartite discomfort on what it could predict for the future.
