No other institution embodies petty tyranny like the ATF. It showcased its reprehensible nature at the end of November when ATF agents raided the home of a Second Amendment activist in Baltimore.
Before dawn, ATF agents tossed a flashbang grenade into the living room of Mark “Choppa” Manley, subsequently ordering all of his family to vacate the premises at the barrel of a gun. From there, the ATF ransacked his house and reviewed the serial numbers of several of his guns.
The federal raid at Manley’s home did not result in any arrests, charges or firearms confiscations. ATF agents seized one of his cell phones for evidentiary purposes, but did not take anything else. This led to gun rights advocates speculating about the nature of this raid, namely, if it was designed to intimidate Manley and his family
Manley is a local star that is active on social media, which he has used to promote his “Choppa Days” events to gather hundreds of firearms owners in the region. He claims the ATF conducted the raid with “bad intel” from an individual in South Maryland who informed the federal agency he was allegedly engaged in drug and weapons trafficking.
The ATF’s Baltimore Field Office informed The Washington Times the search warrant remains sealed and has not commented on the case. He revealed that his phone was recently returned to him and he still hasn’t heard from his lawyer or law enforcement about any criminal charges being potentially pressed against him. Manley and his family are upstanding citizens with no criminal record.
“I do feel like I was targeted. I do feel like the amount of guns I have made me a target and [put] me on their radar,” Manley said to The Washington Times. “Especially being a minority from the inner city.”
“Imagine yourself sleeping peacefully in your home until, boom, flashbangs are going off in your kitchen, the police are ordering your wife and family outside of your house at gunpoint. They are disrupting your peace and privacy all because you exercised your Second Amendment rights,” Hannah Hill, Vice President of the National Foundation for Gun Rights, detailed in a video about the ATF’s raid of Mark Manley’s home. “An innocent man whose house was unjustly raided and his family threatened by the ATF.”
“The government has been shutting down my two-way events,” Manley claimed. “They’ve been shutting down my workshops, and the only thing they can say is because they received a complaint.”
“In one instance, authorities threatened to imprison both Choppa and his wife if he proceeded with a planned event,” Manley told RedState.
Manley is fortunate in this case. For example, Bryan Malinowski, then-Director of Little Rock Airport, was killed in an ATF raid in March 2024. The ATF was allegedly executing a search warrant of Malinowki’s property because of how he was “engaged in business” under their new regulations against private gun dealers. Malinowski was a firearms collector and sold firearms at gun shows as a simple hobby.
This behavior manifested by the ATF is par for the course. It’s an unconstitutional bureaucracy that receives a never-ending stream of funding from Congress. There’s no democratic accountability for its blatantly unconstitutional actions.
With Republicans in control of all branches of government at the federal level, gun owners have the chance of holding the ATF accountable and even reducing its powers. For too long, the ATF has been allowed to operate without impunity.
That ends next year. It should be the main priority for gun owners engaged in federal politics to do everything possible to defund and defang the ATF. This will require relentless pressure on congressional Republicans to ensure the will of the gun owners is respected.
If we allow the ATF to continue operating the way it has, more lawful Americans will be subject to arbitrary acts of tyranny. Enough is enough. 
