A new federal funding bill moving through Congress would keep the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) funded at roughly $1.585 billion for FY2026, barely below what it received under Biden.

For context, the ATF’s budget was about $1.618 billion in 2025, meaning the agency is basically being rewarded with the same cash pipeline it used to target law-abiding Americans with Biden-era crackdowns and “rulemaking” schemes.

And here’s the part that should infuriate every gun owner in the country.

House Republicans originally floated funding cuts that would have dropped ATF spending closer to $1.2 billion.

That kind of cut would have forced real consequences. It would have meant fewer agents, fewer raids, fewer “gotcha” prosecutions, and less capacity to treat ordinary gun owners like criminals for paperwork errors and technicalities.

Of course, Texas Gun Rights wants nothing short of abolition, but once the D.C. machine did what it always does, all backbone vanished.

The “cuts” got negotiated away. The pressure got released. The ATF kept its money.

So now, the same agency that spent years acting like Biden’s personal enforcement arm gets funded at near record levels, with few meaningful restrictions on how it can use that money.

In other words, the ATF gets to keep playing politics with a badge.

This Is How “Gun Control” Actually Wins

Anti-Gun policies don’t always come through flashy gun bans in congress.

Sometimes it comes through bureaucracy, budgets, and the quiet surrender of weak-kneed Republicans who talk tough on camera and fold the moment it matters.

You do not need a new gun ban bill when you can fund a weaponized agency to regulate, harass, intimidate, and prosecute gun owners into submission.

That is what this is.

It is the administrative state doing the dirty work that lawmakers pretend they never authorized.

Pro-Gun Lawmakers Are Furious, and They Should Be

Rep. Andrew Clyde and others have been vocal about how pro-gun policy riders and real restrictions were stripped out during negotiations.

Pro-gun groups like Texas Gun Rights, National Association for Gun Rights, and Gun Owners of America are calling this exactly what it is: a betrayal.

And they are right.

Because if Congress will not defund the ATF while it is still operating under the same enforcement culture that attacked gun owners for years, then when exactly are we supposed to believe “change” is coming?

After the next raid? After the next rule? After the next prosecution? After the next tragedy used as an excuse for more power?

This funding bill tells you everything you need to know about Washington.

The ATF has not earned trust. It has earned oversight, restrictions, and budget cuts. Instead, Congress is preparing to keep the money flowing like nothing ever happened.

Gun owners are not paranoid. They are paying attention. And if Republicans cannot even cut funding to a rogue agency that has openly treated the Second Amendment like a loophole, then it is time to stop pretending we are being represented.

That is surrender and it is NOT what Americans voted for when they gave Republicans a trifecta of control in D.C.

Will you help us continue holding squishy Republicans accountable to their pro-gun campaign promises?

The signing of the BSCA on Jun. 25,  2022 represented the largest expansion of gun control since the passage of the Brady Act of 1993. Under the (BSCA), which establishment Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) helped Democrats pass, the definition of what constitutes a “gun seller” was changed. The BSCA amended the text of Section 921(a) of Title 18, United States Code, where it went from an individual “engaged in the business” of selling guns “with the principal objective of livelihood and profit” to the murkier description “to predominantly earn a profit.”

In addition, the BSCA apportioned funds via the Department of Justice’s State Crisis Intervention Program (SCIP) to states with the aim of encouraging them to start enacting “red flag” gun confiscation orders. After years of gridlock on gun control issues, Gun Control Inc. was finally able to get a win by passing the BSCA. President Biden described the passage of the BSCA as “the most significant gun [control] legislation to pass Congress in 30 years.” 

With respect to the new executive actions that build upon the BSCA, the Department of Justice published a press release announcing the rollout of these two rules under the category of “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (NPRM). The first NPRM, the “Firearm Handlers Rule”, grants “federal firearm licensees (FFLs), such as gun stores” the power to “use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to voluntarily conduct employment background checks for certain employees.” Additionally, the second NPRM,  the “Under-21 Rule”, “would codify enhanced NICS background check procedures for prospective firearm purchasers under 21 years of age, among other changes.”

The DOJ highlighted, “Under the BSCA, NICS is required to conduct enhanced background checks for such under-21 purchasers, by contacting certain state and local entities to determine if a juvenile record, such as a criminal conviction or mental health record, may disqualify the purchaser from possessing a firearm.”

The BSCA was passed after the Uvalde school massacre of May 24, 2022. This bill received the support of 15 Republicans in the U.S. Senate. A number of these senators received strong ratings from the NRA. For example, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Cornyn (R-TX) received A+ ratings, while Mitt Romney (R-UT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), & Lindsey Graham (R-SC) received A ratings. 

The Biden regime knows that it can’t pass gun control via legislative means owing to a divided Congress. As a result, it’s turning to naked forms of executive tyranny to enact anti-gun measures. 

The good news is the victory of Donald Trump on Nov. 5, 2024 coupled with Republicans taking back the U.S. Senate and keeping control of the House gives gun owners a chance to not only roll back these recent executive orders but also repeal unconstitutional gun control laws on the books. 

However, this won’t happen by default. Republicans have a long track record of dragging their feet, and even outright betraying gun owners in certain instances. The x-factor here is going to be citizen pressure to keep Republicans in line. The more these elected officials feel the heat from the grassroots, the more likely gun owners will be able to make concrete gains at the federal level.

Help Texas Gun Rights continue holding Democrats AND Republicans accountable to the Second Amendment with your most generous contribution today.

Once the smoke cleared after the Republican primary in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District on March 5, 2024, incumbent Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and his challenger Brandon Herrera ended up as the top two finishers, picking up 45.4% and 24.2% of the vote respectively. Since neither obtained over 50% of the vote, Gonzales and Herrera are headed to a runoff on May 28, 2024.

This runoff is no random political development. It’s the result of Gonzales’s sketchy legislative track record on gun rights over the past two years of his congressional term. 

Since being elected to Congress in 2020 to represent Texas’ 23rd district, Gonzales has proven himself to be a loyal minion of the DC ruling class. The Uvalde shooting of May 24, 2022, was when Gonzales demonstrated his true colors on the right to bear arms. 

The shooting took place in Gonzales’s district, which naturally had a major impact on him. Instead of soberly processing the situation and focusing on the Uvalde Police Department’s cowardly decision to stand down and not deal with the mass murderer who slaughtered 21 people in a timely manner, Gonzales succumbed to the corporate media’s immediate push for gun control by playing an instrumental role in the passage of the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.”

This gun control package was championed by Republican Senator John Cornyn and Democrat Senator Chris Murphy in the United States Senate, and was ultimately passed with bipartisan support after weak-kneed Republicans like Gonzales got on board. 

Joe Biden described the BSCA as “the most significant gun [control] legislation to pass Congress in 30 years.”

This bill secured $750 million in federal funding for state “red flag” gun confiscation order programs that offer no due process protections. Essentially, an individual who is suspected of posing a threat to themselves or others could have their firearms confiscated without even a judicial hearing. Additionally, this bill allocated $300 million to facilitate the entry of millions of juvenile records into NICS and the reporting on them without any regard for due process. 

$200 million would also go towards the states to handle their new juvenile records reporting requirement, while $100 million would be allocated towards meeting the “additional resource needs” of the NICS system. Such a move represents a significant expansion of the NICS database, which many gun owners perceive as a step towards establishing a de facto gun registry. 

To make matters worse, the BSCA could potentially subject countless lawful gun dealers to criminal penalties. This law establishes new language for a “dealer”, thereby making numerous Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders criminally liable for “dealing without a license” for selling firearms that are later used in criminal acts. The definition of an FFL is broadened to encompass any individual who sells firearms to “predominantly earn a profit” as opposed to anyone who engages in such activity to make a living. In effect, many private gun sales could be subject to criminal penalties. 

These among other provisions make the BSCA a gun control abomination that no self-respecting conservative should ever support. Gonzales portrays himself as a staunch conservative, but in a moment of great political tension, he folded like a lawn chair. 

Thankfully grassroots conservatives in the Lone Star State did not ignore Gonzales’s Second Amendment treachery.

Gonzales’s challenger, Brandon Herrera, made his name as a firearms manufacturer and host of a YouTube channel that has over 3 million subscribers. 

Herrera felt compelled to throw his hat in the political ring because Gonzales had not lived up to his constituents’ pro-gun values during his time in office. Undoubtedly, Herrera is the candidate of the grassroots in this runoff election as he runs on a platform to fully restore the Second Amendment. 

Primaries continue serving a useful purpose as a way to expose the lackluster track record of establishment politicians and punish them for their misbehavior at the ballot box.  Primary elections are one of the democratic mechanisms that pro-gun activists can still use to keep the political class in line and even knock some of their minions if the right political stars align. These elections should not be overlooked. 

The undeniable reality of politics is that when politicians are allowed to legislate in an anti-liberty manner, they will only escalate their efforts to destroy our liberties. Only dedicated grassroots activists who are willing to inflict political pain on bad politicians will restore the sacred liberties that have been stripped from us over the past century. 

Brandon Herrera represents the will of Texas grassroots voters who have yearned for no compromise, pro-Second Amendment leadership. The pro-gun YouTuber upsetting Gonzales on March 28 will send a strong message to Texas’ political class that Second Amendment betrayals will no longer be tolerated. 

This is one race that pro-gun observers should observe with great interest.  

Call Tony Gonzales at (210) 806-9920. Tell him to reverse course and start standing up for the Second Amendment!

Exposing politicians through mail, digital ads and text messages isn’t cheap! Help fund Texas Gun Rights’ efforts to mobilize pro-gun Texans to defend the Second Amendment today:

In the ongoing debate over Second Amendment rights in the United States, prominent gun control organizations like Giffords and Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Control have positioned themselves at the forefront of the movement as leaders for restricting the right to keep and bear arms.

These groups have taken a particular interest in states they perceive as having lax gun laws, advocating for comprehensive legislative changes that, from a pro-gun perspective, threaten the foundational principles of American liberty and self-defense.

Giffords’ recent assessment identifies states such as Wyoming, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Idaho, along with Texas — ranked 20th by Giffords —as having the “worst” gun laws due to their strong protections for gun rights (Texas was ranked 19th “worst” by Everytown, respectively.)

For pro-gun advocates, however, these states represent beacons of freedom and firearms liberty, exemplifying a commitment to upholding the freedoms enshrined in the Second Amendment.

And in the case of Texas, many pro-gun advocates believe Texas should be first when it comes to firearms freedom — not 19th or 20th.

But the legislative priorities proposed by Giffords in Texas, echoed by Bloomberg’s Everytown, underscore a broad agenda to reshape the landscape of gun ownership in the Lone Star State.

These priorities include the implementation of universal gun registration, under the guise of “universal” or “expanded” background checks. Such a system not only raises concerns about privacy and governmental overreach but also lays the groundwork for potential future confiscations, undermining the very essence of the right to keep and bear arms.

Furthermore, the advocacy for extreme risk protection orders, or red flag gun confiscation laws, has been met with significant resistance from pro-gun factions. These laws, which allow for the confiscation of firearms based on unverified allegations, are viewed as a direct violation of due process rights, stripping individuals of their constitutional protections based on mere suspicion.

The call for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity” magazines represents another contentious issue. Proponents of gun control mischaracterize these firearms and accessories, branding them as inherently dangerous and without legitimate civilian use.

In reality, the term “assault weapon” is a nebulous and politically charged label often applied to a wide range of semi-automatic firearms, including many that are popular among law-abiding gun owners for sport, self-defense, and recreational shooting.

The push to ban these firearms and their standard-capacity magazines, which often hold more than ten rounds, include most 9mm handguns and threaten to encompass the majority of modern handguns and rifles, disregarding their prevalent and lawful use across the country.

Additional legislative goals outlined by Giffords and Everytown include the implementation of waiting periods for firearm purchases, the repeal of Constitutional Carry, and requiring a permit to purchase or possess a firearm.

Each of these measures introduces significant barriers to exercising Second Amendment rights, treating law-abiding citizens as potential criminals and impeding their ability to protect themselves and their families in a timely manner.

Bloomberg’s Everytown takes an even more aggressive stance, advocating for the same priorities as Giffords, but also includes the repeal of Texas’ “Stand Your Ground” and Campus Carry laws.

Everytown is also seeking to undermine recent school security bills that passed in the Texas legislature by disarming teachers in public schools. Worse, they are calling for legislation that would penalize individuals for firearms stolen from them, coupled with a proposal for mandatory firearms storage laws that demand gun owners store their firearms locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition — a requirement that could prove fatal in many home invasion and self-defense scenarios.

This overarching strategy seeks not only to regulate the tools of self-defense but to reshape the culture of gun ownership in America, casting it in a negative and dangerous light.

The narrative pushed by these gun control groups, particularly in the wake of mass shootings that often take place in “gun free” zones, overlooks critical data and the complex nature of crime in America.

For instance, FBI crime statistics reveal that rifles, including those vilified by the left like the AR-15, are used in a fraction of homicides compared to other means such as handguns, knives, or even hands and fists.

This statistical reality underscores the fallacy of targeting specific firearm types as a solution to violence, ignoring the broader societal issues that contribute to criminal behavior.

Joe Biden’s recent directive to the ATF, aimed at expanding the definition of a dealer in firearms to include private sellers, represents a significant escalation in the push for universal gun registration.

By attempting to regulate all firearm transactions through governmental approval, the administration sets the stage for a comprehensive database of gun owners, a precursor to potential confiscation efforts, especially in the context of any future semi-automatic firearm bans.

Of course, Everytown and Giffords isn’t holding their breath waiting for the Federal Government to pass extreme gun control.

Giffords is backing four candidates running for public office in Texas, including Colin Allred who is challenging the pro-gun U.S. Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz.

Everytown is going further by backing 11 candidates for Texas offices, targeting mostly state legislative races. In Texas, Democrats only need to maintain their current seats and pick up 10 seats to take majority control of the State House.

Between Everytown and Giffords’ meddling in the Texas elections, coupled with the creation of Texas Majority PAC — a newly formed group run by former Beto O’Rourke presidential campaign staffers — it seems the anti-gun Left are not giving up on attacking Texas’ gun laws. Worse, Texas Majority PAC has raised $2.1 million from notoriously anti-gun George Soros and his affiliated “Democracy PAC” — and have spent over $1.5 million of it on the 2024 election cycle so far.

That’s why Texas Gun Rights has been at the forefront of championing the Second Amendment during this year’s Republican primary and runoff elections, solidifying gun rights as a paramount concern.

By diligently working to ensure that the anti-gun actions of politicians are exposed, TXGR aims to maintain the momentum of the pro-gun agenda heading into the November elections. This strategic focus is critical in positioning Texans to effectively counteract Biden and the gun control machine’s relentless anti-gun measures.

As the political landscape heats up, TXGR’s efforts are vital in safeguarding Texans’ right to bear arms and standing firm against any encroachments on their constitutional freedoms.

But as the debate over gun control continues to unfold, the fundamental question remains: will America uphold the Second Amendment rights of its citizens, or will it succumb to a narrative that seeks to disarm the populace under the guise of safety?

For pro-gun Americans, the answer is clear: the right to keep and bear arms is non-negotiable, and they stand ready to defend it against any and all encroachments.

Will you stand with Texas Gun Rights in 2024?

In Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, he renewed his call for sweeping gun control measures, focusing particularly on the ban of so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines, alongside tightening background checks.

While the narrative pushed by the administration and anti-gun politicians seeks to paint these measures as common-sense steps towards curbing gun violence, a closer examination reveals a fundamentally flawed approach that disproportionately affects law-abiding citizens while doing little to address the root causes of crime.

Central to Biden’s agenda is the demonization of semi-automatic firearms, misleadingly labeled as “assault weapons.” This term, however, is a broad and inaccurate classification that encompasses the majority of American-owned firearms, including not just AR-15 rifles but also many handguns and shotguns.

Legislation like the GoSafe Act targets these semi-automatic firearms, not just AR-15s as often portrayed by media and anti-gun politicians. Such measures ignore the reality that, according to FBI crime statistics, an individual is statistically more likely to be killed by hands or fists than by an AR-15 rifle.

The administration’s focus on “high-capacity” magazines is another misnomer, as the magazines in question are standard 30-round magazines for many firearms, not the outliers they are made out to be. Proposed legislation seeks to limit Americans to firearms that hold no more than 10 rounds, a restriction that would invalidate the majority of 9mm handguns, demonstrating an all-out war on gun owners.

Furthermore, Biden’s recent directive to the ATF to expand the definition of a “dealer in firearms” to include virtually all private gun sales is a perilous step towards universal gun registration.

This maneuver not only infringes upon Americans’ Second Amendment rights but sets the stage for potential confiscation should any future semi-auto ban pass. It’s a blatant attempt to catalog every gun owner in America, laying the groundwork for a system where government oversight extends into the private lives of its citizens.

Throughout his presidency, Biden has consistently advocated for these measures in the aftermath of mass shootings, pulling on the heart-strings of Americans and exploiting their grief to position himself as a proactive force against the NRA’s influence.

During his SOTU speech, he stated “We must beat the NRA again.” His repeated exhortation, “Stop it. Stop it. Stop it,” echoed throughout his address, as he called on both lawmakers to pass his extreme gun control measures.

However, while Biden and many others often cast the NRA as the primary obstacle to gun control legislation, the reality is that a coalition of hard-line, no-compromise gun rights organizations — such as the National Association for Gun Rights, Texas Gun Rights, and Gun Owners of America — play a significant role in opposing such measures.

These groups, more uncompromising and to the “right” of the NRA, have consistently mobilized its members to thwart legislative attempts at gun control, underscoring a deeply rooted belief in the protection of Second Amendment rights without concession.

Texas Gun Rights has been vocal in their opposition to these policies both federally and at the state level, recognizing them as part of a broader assault on gun ownership. They are sounding the alarm, particularly this election cycle, to educate Texans on where their candidates stand on Second Amendment rights.

The narrative pushed by Biden and his supporters fails to recognize that gun control measures, particularly those targeting so-called “assault weapons” and standard-capacity magazines, will not deter crime but rather penalize the vast majority of gun owners who abide by the law. The focus ought to be on addressing the underlying causes of violence without infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

As history has shown, gun registration and excessive control measures are the hallmarks of tyrannical governments, not free societies.