Its responsibilities include the investigation and prevention of federal offenses involving the unlawful use, manufacture, and possession of firearms and explosives ; acts of arson and bombings ; and illegal trafficking and tax evasion of alcohol and tobacco products. The ATF also regulates via licensing the sale, possession, and transportation of firearms, ammunition, and explosives in interstate commerce.
Many of the ATF's activities are carried out in conjunction with task forces made up of state and local law enforcement officers, such as Project Safe Neighborhoods. The ATF operates a unique fire research laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland , where full-scale mock-ups of criminal arson can be reconstructed. The history of the ATF can be subsequently traced to the time of the revenuers or "revenoors" [ 5 ] and the Bureau of Prohibition , which was formed as a unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in It was made an independent agency within the Treasury Department in , was transferred to the Justice Department in , and became, briefly, a division of the FBI in In , responsibility for enforcing federal firearms laws was given to the ATU.
Chapter 40, which provided for close regulation of the explosives industry and designated certain arsons and bombings as federal crimes. The Secretary of the Treasury was made responsible for administering the regulatory aspects of the new law, and was given jurisdiction over criminal violations relating to the regulatory controls. The Secretary and the Attorney General were given concurrent jurisdiction over arson and bombing offenses.
Rex D. Davis oversaw the transition, becoming the bureau's first director, having headed the division since During his tenure, Davis shepherded the organization into a new era where federal firearms and explosives laws addressing violent crime became the primary mission of the agency. Bush signed into law the Homeland Security Act of However, the agency still was referred to as "the ATF" for all purposes. Additionally, the task of collection of federal tax revenue derived from the production of tobacco and alcohol products and the regulatory function related to protecting the public in issues related to the production of alcohol, previously handled by the Bureau of Internal Revenue as well as by ATF, was transferred to the newly established Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau TTB , which remained within the Treasury Department.
Complaints regarding the techniques used by ATF in their effort to generate firearm cases led to hearings before Congressional committees in the late s and s. At these hearings, evidence was received from citizens who had been charged by ATF, from experts who had studied ATF, and from officials of the bureau itself. A Senate subcommittee report stated, "Based upon these hearings it is apparent that ATF enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible.
