Brady Responds to Trump Administration Decision to Subvert ATF Regulations After Four Years of Declining Gun Violence

Primarily designed to serve the special interests of the gun industry, many of these moves will flood our communities with crime guns and spur more violence after years of historic progress

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 29, 2026 — Today, Brady, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention group, released the following statement condemning the Trump administration’s moves to weaken firearm regulations and policies under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The administration’s announcement comes days after Acting Director Todd Blanche of the Department of Justice said to Gun Talk Radio: “Going back to the Reagan administration, the gun industry takes two steps forward. And then a Democrat comes in and takes us eight steps back. We're not going to take two steps forward. We're going to go forward a mile.”

Brady President Kris Brown said: 

For the past four years, the U.S. has been experiencing historic declines in gun crime and homicides — driven by historic investments in violence prevention, evidence-based strong gun policies, and efforts to hold the gun industry accountable. In continuing to roll back or weaken those policies that have kept us safe, Trump and his administration are putting communities at risk in ways that no other industrialized country experiences. While we need time to fully analyze the broader impacts of these dozens of policy changes, this remains clear: after years of successfully combatting gun violence at historic levels in cities throughout this country, any and all efforts to undermine that success will put lives at risk. You simply cannot claim to be tough on crime while catering to the needs of a special interest lobby whose business model is built upon profits earned from the ongoing public health crisis of American gun violence. 

These Trump administration actions aren’t respecting Americans’ rights, and they have absolutely nothing to do with the Second Amendment. Trump’s administration is proving over and over and over again that its priority is protecting industry profits, despite how that limits law enforcement’s access to crime-solving tools and endangers American lives. We have grave concerns with summaries of the policy changes, and we are eager to highlight these concerns with the newly confirmed Director and members of the ATF.

These measures, in concert with the Trump administration’s prior actions to weaken firearms regulations and gun industry oversight and enforcement, help fulfill the gun industry’s wishlist for the administration — regardless of the impact to American public safety. In the absence of robust ATF enforcement of federal gun laws, Brady’s work to bring transparency to the gun industry and hold unscrupulous dealers accountable for violating the law will remain crucial. That includes the Gun Store Transparency Project, the largest database of ATF gun dealer inspection reports available to the public. See our latest updates here.