Documents from the White House clearly state that the country's firearm regulator and drug enforcement arm are to be merged into one agency. 

While reports that the Justice Department has been looking to combine the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been circulating widely since March, there has been little concrete evidence to cite.

That changed last week. 

Tucked into the White House's 1,224-page Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Supplement Appendix on page 618 is this gem:

To most successfully, effectively, and efficiently continue the fight to eradicate the designated cartel FTOs [Foreign Terrorist Organizations] and seek to eliminate violent crime, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) into will be incorporated into DEA, addressing both drug and gun crimes. This transition will be initiated in FY 2026 and achieve efficiencies in resources and case deconfliction.

On the face of it, it makes sense from a prosecutorial standpoint as Federal gun charges and drug trafficking offenses often intersect. While the new DEA-ATF hybrid would almost surely be law enforcement-based, concerning investigations and handing cases over to the DOJ for potential prosecution, a host of regulatory tasks concerning federal gun laws, ranging from processing FFL applications and NFA forms to working with gun makers to certify new designs and answer industry questions, would still have to be done. Whether those would be done by DEA-ATF remains to be seen, as other agencies may be handed these oversight tasks. 

The ATF has long been non-exclusive when it comes to gun regulation. For instance, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, has always been run by the FBI. Commercial non-defense firearm exports have been handled by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security since 2020, picking up the task from the State Department.   

Pro-Second Amendment groups are warning that any such merger could be a threat to lawful gun owners, as the DEA has a much larger $3.8 billion budget versus the ATF's slimmer $1.6 billion budget, as well as almost twice the number of employees. Similarly, the DEA also has long had a public image issue and a record of questionable overreach.

This is from Gun Owners of America:

"The White House just officially proposed merging ATF & DEA. Just imagine:
 
👎3x ATF budget
👎4x ATF tactical units
👎+10,000 new employees
👎reduced oversight & accountability
 
Merging is NOT abolishing, it's a DANGEROUS Trojan Horse."