'Needs to be abolished': Republican sets sights on axing ATF and calls agency a 'disaster'

Congressional Republicans are aiming at a new target in their promise to gut federal agencies once Donald Trump reemerges in the White House with a GOP trifecta.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) said he plans to introduce a measure that would abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, which he attacked for continuously violating “citizen rights and Second Amendment rights.”

“The ATF is a disaster,” Burlison told Fox News Digital on Thursday. “For decades they’ve been a disaster agency and they’ve been violating the Constitution’s Second Amendment.”

Burlison, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, added that states should have the ability to regulate the matters themselves without federal oversight.

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“Every time they try to get involved, they mess things up," Burlison said. “They have a long history of mistakes of abusing individuals' Second Amendment rights – all the way back to Ruby Ridge, to what happened at Waco, and then you had the Operation Fast and Furious."

He added: “I think at the end of the day, this agency needs to be abolished, and we need to let the states police what happens to the states.”

An ATF spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement the agency “provides enormous benefits to the American public through all of its efforts fighting violent crime every day.”

The ATF isn't the only federal agency in Burlison's crosshairs.

He also told the network he thinks the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency should be abolished, and said downsizing government was a top priority for Republicans next year that he hopes can be accomplished in the first 100 days.

“A lot of the ABCs of this town need to be abolished starting with the Department of Education, I think we should eliminate the EPA…let all of these decision be made at the state level.”

He added that he was “looking forward” to working with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in their new advisory roles to “consolidate or eliminate entire agencies.”