Who cut ATF funding? Republicans. Fact.
They've been attacking ATF ever since Waco.
Proof? No. ATF has more funding now than ever.
ATF Fact Sheet - U.S. Bomb Data Center | ATF
Looks like you've been pwned again, sonny.
Sorry, fool. Your own link shows less employees, less investigators, less in other positions.
ATF poorly armed with funding as duties grow
The ATF, charged with keeping track of the nation's 300 million guns, has an annual budget of $1 billion, half that of the
Drug Enforcement Administration and a pittance compared with the $8 billion showered on the FBI. In addition to firearms, the bureau investigates bombings, regulates the explosives industry and tries to halt illegal trafficking of alcohol and cigarettes.
As enforcement responsibilities grow and its funding stays static - the bureau's roster of agents has grown by just 38 in the past 12 years, to 2,388 - some jobs slip through the cracks.
The agency is incapable of inspecting a majority of the nation's 137,000 gun dealers and other licensees within a mandated five-year time frame, according to a
Justice Department inspector general's report in April.
One result: From 2004 to 2011, the number of firearms considered lost or stolen increased 18 percent, to 174,679. Many of those are believed to have fallen into the hands of criminals.
When investigators identify gun dealers guilty of serious violations, the bureau is slow to revoke licenses. The inspector general's report said a third of such cases from 2005 through 2010 took more than a year. In the seven years leading up to 2011, the number of revocations dropped 43 percent.
"Just look at the numbers," said
Marvin Richardson, deputy assistant director for enforcement programs and services for the agency. "They speak for themselves."
Government Agency Charged With Enforcing Gun Laws Has No Permanent Director, Tiny Staff
Part of the problem is that Congress, in its wisdom, removed ATF from the Treasury Department and turned it into a stand-alone agency in 2006, adding the agency's director to the list of posts that require Senate confirmation. Thanks to the NRA's lobbying power, the Senate has
never confirmed anyone for the job since then, leaving the agency rudderless. The ATF's current acting director is working out of the US Attorney's office in Minnesota.
Lack of stable leadership isn't the ATF's only problem.
The bureau employs fewer people than it did almost 40 years ago, with fewer than 2,500 people on hand to regulate the 310 million guns and 60,000 gun dealers in the US. The Post reports that the ATF is so shorthanded that gun dealers can expect an ATF inspection about once every eight years.
Flashback: How Republicans and the NRA Kneecapped the ATF
The problems are obvious. The agency that Obama said "works most closely with state and local law enforcement to keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals" has the same of number of agents as the Phoenix Police Department. Its budget has barely budged in decades (as the Department of Homeland Security has grown flush with post-9/11 funding). It has fewer investigators than it did in 1973. And its acting (and part-time) director, B. Todd Jones, commutes to work from Minneapolis, where he works full-time as a US attorney. It hasn't had a permanent director for six years. The NRA blocked Obama's earlier appointee, Andrew Traver, in part because Traver had once attended a meeting of police chiefs that focused on gun control. At the unveiling of his gun violence prevention package, Obama announced he would seek to make Jones the permanent (and presumably fulltime) chief of the ATF.
