Gun-rights activists sounded the alarm over the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) proposal to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), arguing it would be weaponized by an anti-gun White House. Some Republicans in Congress appear to agree.
The DOJ claimed the proposed merger would make the agencies more efficient in tackling violent crime and drug cartels. Second Amendment advocates warn it could easily be abused by an administration hostile to gun owners.
The proposal is buried in the DOJ’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request, and sources previously told the Second Amendment Foundation the merger could happen as soon as Oct. 1, 2025. The proposal was originally detailed in a March DOJ memo obtained by Reuters.
Gun owners gained a narrow victory in July when the House blocked Attorney General (AG) Pam Bondi’s merger policy in an appropriations funding proposal. On July 18, Senate appropriators also rejected Bondi’s proposal. Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen told Bondi at a hearing the DOJ would need congressional approval for the merger to be enacted.
Bondi defended the merger in June when testifying before the House Appropriations Committee.
“[ATF and DEA] are going to be working together,” she told the committee. “And that’s what this reorganization does.” Bondi added the merger would “reduce unnecessary regulatory efforts.”
“Drugs and guns go together,” she stated. (RELATED: Police Are Arresting Gun Owners For Concealed Carrying And Crossing State Lines — But There’s A Solution)
The DOJ declined to comment to the Daily Caller on whether it is still considering the merger and if it will elaborate on why the merger is a good idea.
Gun-rights activists disagree with the DOJ’s assertion that a merger will enable government efficiency.
“The potential merger of these two agencies will not help streamline government operations,” Second Amendment Foundation Executive Director Adam Kraut told the Caller.
“By definition, the agencies have two different missions — one being the enforcement of federal drug laws and regulations and the other being the enforcement of federal alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives laws and regulations. The only arguable crossover is firearms — in the criminal context. If the agencies were to be merged, the expertise in the regulatory context would be lost among other things,” he continued.
The Trump administration has instituted reforms aimed at protecting gun rights, including the repeal of Biden’s “Zero Tolerance Policy,” which targeted federal firearm license (FFL) dealers. The DOJ’s recent proposal sparked fears those reforms could be reversed under a future anti-gun administration.
Activists argued an ATF and DEA merger would create a powerful agency armed with more federal resources to target gun rights.
Gun-rights groups, including the Second Amendment Foundation and Gun Owners of America (GOA), sent a letter to Bondi in June expressing their concerns about the proposed merger. The letter detailed 12 reasons why the merger would be a “trojan horse” for gun restrictions.
They noted former Democratic Vice President Al Gore, a staunch proponent of gun control, first proposed merging the ATF, DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into one agency back in 1993.
While the DOJ purports the merger would help the government target drug cartels, the letter pointed out how the DEA and ATF collaborated in the past, describing that partnership as a failure. (RELATED: Trump 2.0 Takes Chainsaw To The Deep State With Historic Cuts Of Staff, Budgets)
During the Obama administration’s “Operation Fast and Furious,” the ATF collaborated with the FBI, DEA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), allowing thousands of firearms to fall into the hands of the Mexican cartels. The operation resulted in the 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry, The New York Times (NYT) reported.
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 23: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the House Committee on Appropriations at the U.S. Capitol on June 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Committee met to hear testimony on the 2026 Fiscal Year request for the Department of Justice. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
The DEA manages the scheduling of controlled substances, which includes medications in the pharmaceutical industry. Gun activists fear a potential merger would empower Big Pharma lobbyists at the expense of gun owners by giving more influence to the pharmaceutical lobby, which dwarfs spending efforts by gun-rights organizations.
“[F]uture gun owners will have to compete with the lobbying infrastructure of multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies interested in just who runs the agency tasked with the regulation of their industry,” the letter states, arguing the gun-control budget would increase threefold and militarize law enforcement against gun owners.
Gun-rights lobbyists have spent over $7 million on lobbying in 2025, compared to the over $226 million spent by the pharmaceuticals and health products industry, Open Secrets data shows.
Gun-control groups have also expressed concerns regarding proposed cuts to the budgets of both agencies. Groups like Everytown for Gun Safety lamented that such cuts could hinder the government’s ability to regulate firearms.
“This budget would be a win for unscrupulous gun dealers and a terrible setback for ATF’s state and local law enforcement partners,” the group’s president, John Feinblatt, told the NYT.
Pro-gun activists maintain that combining the ATF with the DEA would embolden the targeting of gun owners and jeopardize the Second Amendment — and the ATF’s past does not help Bondi’s case. (RELATED: One Forgotten Government Agency Has Tormented Americans For Years —Kash Patel Could Fix It)
The ATF has a storied history, from Waco and Ruby Ridge to a litany of alleged abuses during the Biden administration, including the entrapment, arrest and eventual imprisonment of U.S. Navy veteran Patrick “Tate” Adamiak.
Biden’s ATF found cut up gun parts and a deactivated rocket launcher in Adamiak’s house, and he was ultimately sentenced to 20 years in prison. Now, he’s pleading for a pardon from President Donald Trump.
“This was nothing short of a weaponized agency overreach,” he stated in a letter to Trump obtained by the Second Amendment Foundation.
“The executive branch can only do so much to ensure ATF’s power is not abused by future administrations,” Kraut told the Caller.
“As we have seen with the current administration, the repealing of rules enacted by the prior administration is possible. Unfortunately, administrative agencies can be weaponized by hostile executive branches,” he stated. “Short of rescinding abusive regulations, discarding various programs, and removing personnel, which would require a hostile administration to rebuild, there is not a plethora of options to ensure the agency does not become weaponized again in the future.”
