After pushback from both gun rights and gun control groups, the Trump administration has quietly abandoned its plan to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to people briefed on the matter. The MAGA groups want ATF gone and the laws it enforces repealed. Not everyone is for gun regulation,” one person involved in the Trump administration discussions that followed the Blanche memo told CNN. Democrats and left-leaning gun control groups also decried the plan as an attempt to sideline ATF and harm efforts to reduce gun violence. “We’ve been operating as if that’s off the table for months now,” one law enforcement official told CNN.

Source: CNN January 17, 2026 20:04 UTC