How the Trump Administration is Reforming the ATF

On Feb. 7, 2025, President Donald Trump (R) signed an executive order requiring the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to review all regulations or “actions by the Biden administration regarding firearms” and “to eliminate all infringements on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”

After more than a year of review, the (DOJ), and its sub-agency the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), released 34 notices of final and proposed rules to eliminate infringements on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. This is an effort to reduce unnecessary, and often unconstitutional, burdens on law-abiding gun owners and Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs), to modernize outdated regulations, to align rules with current law and court precedent, and to focus enforcement on criminals rather than FFLs that make unintentional paperwork errors.

The DOJ grouped these 34 proposed changes into five groups: Repeal, Modernize, Reduce Burden, Clarify, and Align.

Many of these are proposed rules, which are open for public comment (typically 90 days once published in the Federal Register), while some are final, direct final, or interim final rules. The full individual rule texts and detailed summaries are being posted to the Federal Register and the ATF website (atf.gov).

The most prominent changes include:

• Repeal of the 2023 stabilizing brace rule: This would remove restrictions that had effectively treated many braced pistols as short-barreled rifles (SBRs) under the National Firearms Act (NFA).
• Revision or repeal of the 2024 “engaged in the business” rule: This narrows the definition of who must obtain a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to deal in firearms.
• Removal of bump stock-related language from the definition of “machine guns.”
• Changes to “willful” violation standards and clarification of straw purchaser definitions: This shifts focus away from minor or unintentional errors and toward intentional misconduct.
• Modernization of ATF Form 4473: Simplifying the form, allowing greater use of electronic records and storage, and limiting the time that such records must be maintained.

The DOJ said these changes are “[c]onsistent with ATF’s commitment in 2025 to rebuild trust with Federal Firearms and Explosives Licensees (FFLs/FELs) and industry stakeholders.” The DOJ also said that this “landmark release is the first in a series of regulatory updates ATF plans to issue.”

“The Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” said U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “This Department of Justice is ending the weaponization of federal authority against law-abiding gun owners. We will continue to vigorously defend their rights as the Constitution demands.”

In a press conference, Blanche noted that the 34 proposed changes add up to the biggest change the ATF has seen “in the last 15 years combined.” He also added that “nothing we are doing today weakens law enforcement.”

NRA-ILA noted, “April 29 was a big day for Second Amendment supporters in Washington, D.C., as ATF announced the confirmation of a new director, Robert Cekada, and rolled out perhaps the biggest one-day regulatory overhaul in the agency’s history.”

While former President Joe Biden’s (D) “zero-tolerance” policy for FFLs was meant to use even small paperwork errors to revoke licenses from gun dealers, the Trump administration is refocusing law enforcement on actual criminals.