The ATF never should have existed in the first place. It was originally the Bureau of Prohibition, formed to enforce Prohibition. After Prohibition was repealed it became an agency without a purpose, pressed into service to perform various different functions as part of various different departments. Every one of those functions could have been carried out by another agency (or, better yet, not carried out at all), but that would have left the agency with nothing to do. It couldn’t simply go away, because that is the one thing a government agency never does.
Which is why I’m not very excited about the reports that the Department of Justice is considering eliminating the ATF. The ATF has done the one thing that would actually make it possible to eliminate it: through its astonishing incompetence and malfeasance, it has become a political liability. But despite all that, it’s very hard to imagine it happening.
Internet Scofflaw 