The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF’s) top lawyer, Robert Leider, has resigned as Chief Counsel.
ATF Director Robert Cekada said Leider tendered his resignation, and he has accepted it. Mr. Leider will return to the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University as an Assistant Professor of Law. No other reasons were given for the resignation.
“Today, I accepted the resignation of ATF Chief Counsel Robert Leider,” Cekada wrote on X. “Robert has been a trusted advisor and has ably led ATF’s legal and policy work, strengthening the agency’s operations in countless ways. We are grateful for his service and wish him the very best as he returns to George Mason University, which is fortunate to have him back. Best of luck, Robert.”
The departure comes just weeks after Leider and Cekada sat side by side explaining the agency’s new National Firearms Act (NFA) guidance to gun owners.
Today, I accepted the resignation of ATF Chief Counsel Robert Leider. Robert has been a trusted advisor and has ably led ATF’s legal and policy work, strengthening the agency’s operations in countless ways. We are grateful for his service and wish him the very best as he returns to George Mason University, which is fortunate to have him back. Best of luck, Robert. . https://t.co/W1rVCWYo1Z
— Robert Cekada (@ATFDirectorRC) October 30, 2026
From Scalia Law to the ATF
Mr. Leider’s appointment came in March 2025, shortly after Pam Bondi was confirmed as United States Attorney General on February 4 of the same year. He replaced rabid anti-gun lawyer Pamela Hicks, who was unceremoniously dismissed from the job. Bondi removed Hicks on February 20, 2025. Hicks confirmed the firing on LinkedIn, writing that she had been “served official notice from the Attorney General of the United States that I was being removed from my position as the Chief Counsel of ATF.” Hicks had served as Chief Counsel since 2021 under the Biden administration.
Before taking the position, Leider was a Second Amendment scholar who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Sykes. At Scalia Law, he taught criminal law and torts. His scholarship focused on criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law, with a particular focus on self-defense, the constitutional allocation of military power, and gun control. He published in the Florida Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, and The Wall Street Journal, and he wrote “The Individual Right to Bear Arms for Common Defense.”
Leider also practiced at Arnold & Porter and Mayer Brown, and he holds a law degree from Yale and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown.
Just months before he took the job, Leider laid out his game plan in a December 2024 column for The Reload. He argued that gun-rights advocates would get more out of reforming the ATF than trying to abolish it.
“Instead of using their political capital to try and dismantle the ATF, gun advocates would likely see more success working within the system,” he wrote. “While federal firearms laws cannot be repealed by executive action, they still delegate significant power to the Attorney General (who subdelegates to ATF) on how the laws are implemented. The Trump Administration could shift many ATF policies in their favor.”
That is exactly what he set out to do.
A Wave of Rollbacks
During his time at the ATF, Leider supported the development and release of close to 40 proposed and final rules. These rules rolled back many regulations targeting American gun owners and streamlined regulation.
The changes started early. In April 2025, weeks after Leider arrived, the Department of Justice and ATF repealed the Biden-era “zero tolerance” Enhanced Regulatory Enforcement Policy, which had led to automatic license revocations for gun dealers over qualifying violations. The replacement policy, released in May 2025, requires a case-by-case review that considers a dealer’s intent, compliance history, and public-safety risk. Minor clerical errors can now get a warning instead of a death sentence for a small business. Cekada later said that he and Leider “rebuilt” the revocation process so that a revocation is not final until the director signs off, with Leider’s Office of Chief Counsel reviewing those cases.
In April 2026, the ATF rolled out its package of reforms.
Among them was a proposal to rescind the 2023 pistol stabilizing brace rule. Multiple federal courts had found that rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and it had been enjoined, stayed, or vacated across numerous jurisdictions. The proposal would restore the regulatory definition of “rifle” to what it was before 2023. The agency said it “is a waste of resources to continue defending and trying to enforce the 2023 final rule.”
The package also proposed rescinding much of the Biden administration’s 2024 “engaged in the business” rule, which gun owners feared would turn private sellers into criminals. The ATF said it would keep only the definition Congress itself wrote into the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Many wished he had gone back to the rule as it was before Biden changed it. Because the ATF did not completely repeal the rule, the court battle still continues in Texas v. ATF.
Silencer Shop and the NFA
Leider also helped develop guidance on suppressors, short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs), and Any Other Weapons (AOWs) after a ruling in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF.
The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) Act, signed on July 4, 2025, cut the NFA’s $200 making-and-transfer tax on those items to $0, effective January 1, 2026. That left the NFA’s registration scheme standing without the tax it was built to enforce. On August 5, 2026, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas ruled that key registration and transfer provisions could no longer be justified under Congress’s taxing or commerce powers as applied to those untaxed items. He permanently barred enforcement against the plaintiffs, their members, and their customers. The Justice Department (DOJ) chose not to appeal.
Cekada and Leider said the ATF would treat all law-abiding Americans the same and would not enforce the enjoined provisions against anyone, whether or not they were technically covered by the injunction. They added that the guidance does not override state laws.
What Comes Next
Cekada, a career ATF agent who joined the bureau in 2005 after police work with the NYPD and in Plantation, Florida, became director in April 2026 after serving as deputy director since April 2025. He now has to replace the man who helped write much of his agenda.
That matters. The brace and “engaged in the business” repeals were published as proposed rules that have to clear notice and comment, and the fight over the Silencer Shop injunction is still playing out in court. Whoever takes over the Office of Chief Counsel will shape how those rules are finalized and defended.
The ATF has not named a successor or given a timeline for appointing one.
About John Crump
Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and constitutional activist with more than 26 years of experience in networking and cybersecurity for major Fortune 100 companies. John has written about firearms, the Constitution, and cybersecurity, and has interviewed people from all walks of life. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons. Follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.
