Another Senior Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) employee has been given a choice to retire or be terminated. This time, it is ATF Senior Policy Counsel Eric Epstein.
The ATF has been purging some of its more anti-gun employees. It started with the removal of gun control darling Pam Hicks who served as the Bureau’s Chief Legal Counsel. Her removal came after President Trump’s executive order on Second Amendment rights. The firing drew praise from pro-gun groups and venom from anti-gun groups. Hicks was openly hostile toward the gun rights of American citizens.
Marvin Richardson was also forced to retire from his position as ATF Deputy Director. Mr. Richardson was a proponent of the pistol brace and frames rule. He also met with the Biden transition team days after the 2020 presidential election. Under his leadership, the ATF passed some of the most restrictive gun control rules in the nation’s history. His removal was seen as another victory for gun rights advocates and another defeat for anti-gun groups that held much power during the last administration.
Mr. Epstein has been at the heart of what a lot of the pro-gun community considers problems. He was the author of the “engaged in the business” (EIB) rule, which many consider backdoor gun control. Under the EIB rule, selling as few as a single gun could require a federal firearms license (FFL). Meaning a person who makes a private sale could be committing a crime in the eyes of the ATF. This rule was a direct result of Congress rejecting universal background checks. An injunction is preventing the rule from being implemented, and the ATF is expected to withdraw it.
Epstein also had a hand in drafting the pistol brace rule. The rule reclassified millions of pistols equipped with braces as short-barreled rifles (SBR) and subjected them to National Firearms Act (NFA) regulations. If a gun owner refuses to submit a passport photo, fingerprints, and register their firearm with the ATF, then they could be sent to prison for 10 years and face a $250,000 per violation. The courts have also blocked this rule for violating the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).
He also worked on the frames and receivers rule. This rule changed the definition of a firearm to include incomplete frames. The goal of the rule was to make it harder for anyone to make a privately manufactured firearm (PMF), which the Biden Administration referred to as “ghost guns.” A recent Supreme Court opinion upheld the rule, which is currently in place. Some companies, such as Polymer80, have shut down operations.
The former Senior Policy Counsel also gave an affidavit in a lawsuit challenging the Justice Department’s (DOJ) stance that Michigan could not use a concealed carry permit as a “Brady alternative.” The Brady bill says a concealed carry permit where a person goes through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) could be used instead of going through a background check every time they purchase a gun. Gun Owners of America (GOA) sued the DOJ over the policy, and Epstein was quick to defend it in his affidavit.
Epstein was also the Phoenix Field Office’s Division Counsel during Operation Wide Receiver. That operation morphed into Operation Fast and Furious, where guns were allowed to flow from the United States into the hands of Mexican drug cartel members. One of the firearms allowed to “walk” to cartel members across the border was used to kill U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
With Epstein out, the only question for those who pushed an anti-gun agenda at ATF is, who’s next?
About John Crump
Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
