The Trump administration has rolled back more than 34 federal gun regulations in what the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives described as the broadest rewrite of its rules in the agency’s history, scrapping Biden-era background check expansions, loosening oversight of private sales and restoring gun access to some people with mental illness.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and newly confirmed ATF Director Robert Cekada unveiled the changes in late April, with additional rollbacks announced on Friday including the elimination of fingerprinting requirements for certain firearms applications. The changes repeal a 2024 Biden rule that required background checks for gun show and private sales, narrow the definition of dealers required to conduct checks, raise the legal bar for revoking a gun dealer’s licence to require proof of knowing violations, and would allow Americans to ship handguns through the mail under a dismantling of a 1927 criminal statute.
The rollbacks also restore firearms rights to some veterans and individuals previously flagged under mental health provisions, a move gun safety group Everytown described as dangerous given the ongoing veteran suicide crisis. John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said the administration’s answer to gunfire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was to gut commonsense gun safety laws. Blanche defended the changes, saying regulations had for too long been written without understanding how firearms businesses or lawful gun owners actually operated.
