Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), agency within the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for enforcing federal laws relating to alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives. The ATF headquarters are in Washington, D.C. The bureau’s agents are dispersed throughout the United States.

The bureau’s history began with a series of government tax-collection agencies and efforts in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1791, to offset debts from the American Revolution, Congress imposed a tax on distilled spirits. The tax was unpopular and led to an uprising in 1794 called the Whiskey Rebellion. As a result, tax laws changed repeatedly between the Whiskey Rebellion and the Civil War in the 1860s, when new laws authorized the government to pay detectives to help identify, capture, and punish tax evaders. These developments gave rise to the antecedents of both the ATF and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The predecessor of the ATF took on increased enforcement responsibilities during and after the Prohibition era. In 1952 the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division (ATTD) of the IRS was formed. With the passage of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as well as the Gun Control Act of 1968, federal firearms legislation was overhauled, and the scope of the agency expanded. These laws also empowered the ATTD to enforce laws against criminal use of explosives.

The division was renamed the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division (ATFD) of the IRS in 1968. Because its duties had become increasingly distinct from those of the IRS, the division became a bureau of the Treasury Department in 1972. New duties that the ATF was charged with in the 1970s included enforcement of wagering laws and investigation of intrastate cigarette smuggling and criminal arson. Several laws that added to the bureau’s work were enacted in the 1990s. These included the Brady Law (1994), which instituted a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases; the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (1996), which added penalties for arson and other explosives violations; and the Church Arson Prevention Act (1996), which bolstered laws regarding church burning and desecration.

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In the 1990s the ATF was involved in three of the major law-enforcement actions of the decade—the siege and raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing, and the capture of the Unabomber. In the first action, the bureau as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice came under criticism for the assault of the compound, which led to the deaths of dozens of civilians and four agents. In the latter two actions, ATF agents were involved in capturing Timothy McVeigh and Theodore Kaczynski, respectively (both of whom were convicted). In the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the most far-reaching reorganization of U.S. defense and diplomatic resources since the National Security Act of 1947. As a result, in January 2003 the law-enforcement powers of the ATF were transferred to the Department of Justice, whereas the agency’s tax and regulatory functions remained within the Treasury Department under the newly created Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.