The eighth director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is on his way out as head of the agency just before the Trump inauguration.
Steve Dettelbach, 59, has only been in the position of ATF Director since July 2022. His resignation letter, effective Jan. 18, 2025, has been circulating on social media and confirmed this week by the agency to Stephen Gutowski of "The Reload."
A former corporate lawyer and an Obama-era U.S. Attorney who ran to be Ohio's Attorney General as an Everytown-endorsed Democrat, Dettelbach was introduced to the public at a White House event in April 2022 by President Biden as "immensely qualified" to run the "AFT." He only made it through Congress by a razor-thin margin, being confirmed 48-46 in the Senate. Even then it took two centrist Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio – to cross the aisle to secure his confirmation at a time when several lawmakers in the gerontocratic body were out with health issues.
Dettelbach was Biden's second choice as head of the country's federal gun regulator. The president withdrew his first pick, controversial retired ATF agent David Chipman, when it became clear he lacked enough congressional support to become confirmed. Before that, the last Senate-confirmed director was the controversial B. Todd Jones, who oversaw the agency under Obama. The last Republican-nominated director that was confirmed was Carl Truscott in 2004.
Going on record in 2018 while running for AG in the Buckeye State as being a supporter of an "assault weapons ban," Dettelbach drew a blank when senators asked him to define such a weapon in during his confirmation hearings in 2022, and again in front of Congress in April 2023. Nonetheless, he became the first sitting ATF director to advocate for their ban, done during a public event at Harvard in November 2023.
Pro-2A advocates welcomed the news of his pending departure.
“We’re delighted to learn Dettelbach will be gone, and that President Trump will be able to place someone in authority at ATF who can turn that agency around,” said Alan Gottlieb, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, in an email to Guns.com. “The country needs someone at the ATF helm who will lead the agency, not weaponize it; someone who not only can define what an ‘assault weapon’ is but also understands what it is not."
President-elect Trump has not made public who his nominee for ATF will be, although various names have been theorized. Trump's 2019 pick during his first term, Chuck Canterbury, was withdrawn after the long-term president of the National Fraternal Order of Police struggled in confirmation hearings and was opposed by a host of 2A groups.
Meanwhile, the possibility of deleting the agency altogether has some supporters on Capitol Hill, with U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) promising to introduce an "Abolish the ATF Act" as soon as the 119th Congress convenes.
"The Second Amendment doesn’t need a babysitter," said Burlison on Thursday. "The ATF’s job is redundant, dangerous, and unconstitutional. Let’s eliminate it."
