Donald Trump’s administration has been a boon to gun traffickers, and a new lawsuit seeks to shed more light on the illegal guns being used in crimes.

To those who followed along as the GOP attempted to kneecap the Obama administration with its “Fast and Furious” inquiries back in 2012, the fact that Republicans firmly support Trump despite his being a major enabler of gun trafficking will reek of hypocrisy.

ProPublica recently reported that Trump has gutted many of the policies the Biden administration implemented to combat illegal sales of guns — a crackdown that experts have said contributed to a decline in violent crime that occurred during Biden’s term and has continued into Trump’s.

One of the Trump administration’s regressive moves was to repeal a zero-tolerance policy of pulling licenses from gun sellers who engaged in illegal sales. Per ProPublica:

But the Trump administration, driven both by gun-lobby advocacy and its own political priorities, quickly set about undoing much of its predecessor’s moves to combat gun violence. It repealed the zero-tolerance policy, going so far as to invite revoked dealers to reapply for new licenses. It shifted hundreds of ATF agents to immigration work. And it scaled back on prosecutions for gun trafficking. The White House declined to comment, referring questions to the ATF and the Department of Justice.

ProPublica’s report noted that the effect of Trump’s moves could be felt in the years ahead:

The homicide rate fell further last year, but criminologists warn against complacency, because the illicit gun trade is a classic pipeline problem: The harm can take a while to make itself felt. Research has found that the typical “time to crime” for trafficked firearms ranges up to about three years, which means that any positive lag of the anti-trafficking efforts of the Biden years would still be in effect now, with any negative effects of the Trump pullback lying in the years to come.

The Trump regime’s trafficker-friendly agenda is at the heart of a new lawsuit from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The suit stems from the withholding of federal requests for information from gun dealers who have sold weapons that were used in violent crimes. These requests, which are known as DL2s and issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, have been decried by the firearm industry.

“Americans deserve to know about the sources of firearms that are driving crime in our communities and what ATF is doing, or not doing, about it,” Brady Center President Kris Brown said in a statement.

The ATF did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

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