The fiscal year 2026 budget proposal from President Donald Trump includes 28% decreases for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives budget relative to previous levels.

The proposal, which decreases overall non-defense discretionary spending by 23% from fiscal year 2025, has the objective of ending “the previous administration’s weaponization of the government.” That goal includes “halting the ATF’s criminalizing of gun-owning Americans.”

One description of the budget says the plan “bolsters the Second Amendment by cutting funding for ATF offices that have criminalized law-abiding gun ownership through regulatory fiat.”

The budget instead “reprioritizes resources toward illegal firearms traffickers fueling violent crime,” as well as “gun tracing that state and local law enforcement need to track down dangerous criminals,” such as members of MS-13 and other gangs led by illegal aliens.

Various lawmakers expressed agreement with the new budget. Representative Andrew Clyde, a Republican from Georgia, remarked on social media that Congress must indeed “cut the ATF’s funding and eliminate these unconstitutional attacks on our Second Amendment freedoms.”

Representative Eric Burlison, a Republican from Missouri, said that the new budget “puts the ATF on a tight leash” but called for the complete dismantling of the federal gun control entity.

Beyond the Republican lawmakers who voiced agreement with abolishing the agency, Second Amendment advocates have often criticized the ATF for enforcing unconstitutional gun control measures, often in an overzealous way, and have likewise called for the end of the entity.