Unelected. Unaccountable. And more powerful today than the founders ever imagined any federal office could become. This is the story of how a small tax collection office buried within the United States Treasury transformed into one of the most controversial federal agencies in American history. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. How did it rise? Who gave it power? And what does its growth mean for the future of the Second Amendment? Today we’re digging deeper, deeper than I ever have before, into the political deals, the scandals, the court battles, and the bureaucratic mission creep that allowed the ATF to become what it is today.

Today we’re digging deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. To understand the ATF, we have to go back to the 1920s and the 1930s, when the federal government had no firearms enforcement agency, no firearms registry, and no authority to regulate individual gun owners. It all began with the Prohibition Era, where the federal government used taxation to go after bootleggers. The Alcohol Tax Unit, or ATU, lived inside the Treasury Department, and its job was simple. Collect taxes. Not enforce gun laws. But then came 1934. The NFA didn’t ban machine guns, short-barreled rifles, or suppressors. It simply taxed them. And the Treasury Department, through the ATU, was put in charge of enforcing it.

A tax unit became a gun-regulating unit at that moment in history. This was the very first moment the federal government connected firearms to federal bureaucracy. A connection the founders never authorized, never imagined, and would have fiercely rejected. You know, since we’re talking about the ATF, I wanted to tell you all that because of your requests, after my bourbon sold out in less than 48 hours, I have secured 100 bottles from what I’m going to be calling the Winter Barrel, which is from a different barrel, and it also has a different taste to it, some different notes.

And this is thanks to my friends at Heraclitus Select Kentucky Bourbon. We do this to honor the nines and ones, the famous Heraclitus 100 Men quote. The quote referring to battle is, Out of every 100 men, 10 shouldn’t even be there. 80 are just targets. Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them. For they make the battle. Ah, but the one. One is a warrior, and he will bring the others back. My Winter Barrel Bourbon was distilled on February 28th of 2017 and aged for eight, almost nine years, in Crestwood, Kentucky at the Kentucky Artisan Distillery, and it consists of 60% corn, 36% rye, and 4% barley.

It was bottled at 91 proof so that it’ll be pleasing to everybody’s palate at the Whiskey Thief Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky, and will be shipping from the retailer Longhorn in Austin, Texas. Now the bottles are extremely limited, extremely limited, and will sell out fast. There are less than 100 available right now when I looked. So even if you don’t drink, a bottle of super rare bourbon is a great gift to the nines and ones in your life. You can get yours right now at Heraclitus Select dot com. I’ll have a link down below. Let’s fast forward to the 1960s, a turbulent decade marked by political assassinations, riots, and cultural upheaval.

Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968, vastly expanding federal gun regulations. For the first time, the federal government required federal firearms licenses, import restrictions, record-keeping mandates, prohibited persons categories, and interstate sales restrictions. The ATU suddenly became something new, something much bigger. It became the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Division, known as ATF, and its mission expanded from taxes to law enforcement. With the new authority came new power, and with new power came more mission creep, the slow, steady growth of enforcement beyond what Congress ever intended. The 1990s were a turning point. ATF’s aggressive politicized operations at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and Waco, Texas in 1993 left the agency’s reputation scarred.

Reports later revealed botched surveillance, entrapment attempts, exaggerated claims, and unnecessary escalations. And, of course, the murder of American citizens, women and children included. Congress questioned whether ATF had become too militarized, too aggressive, too eager to expand its footprint. After 9-11, Americans watched the federal government grow at a historic pace. The ATF was no exception. In 2003, the Homeland Security Act shifted the ATF from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice, giving it the weight of the DOJ behind its enforcement. This move fundamentally changed the agency. It was no longer an obscure tax office. It was now a federal law enforcement bureau backed by the Attorney General and the full power of the federal criminal justice system.

Then came the Obama and Biden administrations. If the 20th century was about expanding ATF enforcement, the 21st century became about expanding ATF rulemaking authority. We saw the bump stock rule, the frame and receiver rule, the pistol brace rule, the force reset trigger rule, the homemade gun restrictions, export bans, ammo classifications, just to name a few. Instead of Congress passing laws, ATF began creating new gun laws through regulations, redefining terms, changing classifications and criminalizing behavior without a single vote from elected representatives. The founders warned us about this. James Madison in Federalist 47 said, The accumulation of all powers in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

And yet, ATF accumulated more and more power, not through legislation, but through bureaucratic interpretation. In recent years, something changed. Americans pushed back, and courts began to push back as well. Courts started asking a very simple question. Where did Congress give ATF the authority to do this? In ruling after ruling, judges found ATF exceeded its authority. ATF rewrote statutes. ATF criminalized lawful items. ATF acted like a legislature, not an agency. And the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear. Agencies cannot create new crimes by rewriting definitions. Chief Justice Roberts said, Today, ATF is larger than ever.

It conducts millions of background checks through NICS partners, tens of thousands of inspections of FFLs, firearm and FFL shutdown operations, technology classifications, secret undisclosed internal rule opinions, widespread digital surveillance programs, undercover operations, tracking investigations. Oh yeah, and they’ll knock on your door at 5 a.m. to shoot you if they think that you are violating a law when you’ve never even been charged with a crime. A la Brian Malinowski. And every single year, ATF’s budget grows. The Founders never envisioned a federal agency with this much day-to-day control over a constitutional right.

Ever. So what is the solution? How do we rein in an agency that has grown far beyond its original purpose? Some of the solutions we’ve had recently are court rulings, rejecting regulatory overreach, congressional bills demanding clarity or rollback, states refusing to enforce federal restrictions, lawsuits challenging ATF policies, reform proposals to limit agency discretion, and a renewed understanding of natural rights, which is the biggest one. And that’s you and I. Increasingly, Americans are asking, does the ATF serve the Constitution, or does it serve the bureaucracy? Ultimately, the story of the ATF is not the story of an agency.

It’s the story of American government. What happens when a bureaucracy grows unchecked? When regulation replaces representation? And when constitutional rights are placed at the mercy of unelected rule-makers? But the Founders had a message for generations like ours. Thomas Jefferson said, when government fears the people, there is liberty. It is up to we, the people, informed, vigilant, and unafraid, to demand that our government serve the Constitution, not the convenience of bureaucracy. And I think you’re seeing that play out. Thank you so much for watching this Guns and Gadgets documentary special.

If you want more long-form episodes like this, share the video, leave a comment down below, and let me know what topic you’d like me to tackle next. I appreciate y’all sticking around this long. Until next time, stay safe, stay vigilant, stay armed, and stay free. The ATF is an unelected bureaucracy. It’s unconstitutional, and it needs to be disbanded immediately. Appreciate y’all. See you on the next one. Take care. [tr:trw].

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