The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has removed a controversial anti-gun exhibit from its national headquarters.
The memorial display, called the ‘Faces of Gun Violence,’ consisted of 120 portraits of individuals killed in gun-related incidents and was installed under the Biden administration and was taken down earlier this year by Trump-appointed officials.
The decision, confirmed by the Department of Justice, marks yet another reversal of subversive gun control messaging embedded into federal agencies during Biden’s term.
The ATF has still kept the anti-gun propaganda video on its YouTube page.
DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin stated that the removal was not a political act but part of broader efforts to “balance agency messaging” with the Second Amendment values affirmed by recent Supreme Court rulings.
The display included images of high-profile victims such as Robert Godwin Sr., who was murdered in Cleveland in 2017, and portraits of children killed in school shootings, alongside slain law enforcement officers. While originally presented as a neutral tribute, critics long argued that the exhibit was a thinly veiled anti-gun propaganda, intentionally placed in a federal law enforcement building to reinforce a narrative in favor of further firearm restrictions.
Gun control activists and Biden-aligned interest groups reacted with outrage. Kris Brown, president of Brady United Against Gun Violence, accused the ATF of being “politicized” and called the removal “a gut punch to every American family affected by gun violence.” Brenda Haymon Joiner, mother of one of the victims featured in the exhibit, also issued a statement calling the action “cruel and deeply disrespectful.”
Elderly left-wing Star Trek actor George Takei, on Facebook, denounced the change and claimed it re-traumatized the victims’ families.
But to many Second Amendment supporters, the removal was long overdue.
Ammoland, a prominent firearms news outlet, posted a video applauding the decision, calling the exhibit “a taxpayer-funded guilt trip” that cast suspicion on law-abiding gun owners by implying collective responsibility for criminal violence. The outlet’s editorial noted that many of the highlighted deaths had no connection to legally-purchased firearms or ATF-regulated activity, raising questions about the exhibit’s relevance to the agency’s mission.
During the Biden years, the ATF came under fire for increasingly partisan messaging, including partnering with groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety and appearing at activist events. The memorial exhibit was one of several initiatives quietly pushed into public view without input from Congress or the firearm-owning public.
ATF leadership has indicated it is exploring other ways to honor victims of crime without conflating tragedy with political ideology. Gilmartin noted the agency will “seek a more inclusive and respectful approach” that doesn’t alienate millions of responsible gun owners.
ATF leadership has been undergoing a significant change since the departure of Joe Biden. ATF’s Chief Counsel Pamela Hicks was fired by the Trump administration and escorted out of the Washington, D.C. headquarters on February 20th.
The current Acting Director of the ATF is Daniel Driscoll.
Left-wing activists deliberately use the phrase “gun violence” as a way to include suicides, accidental shootings, and shootings by law enforcement as a way to inflate their statistics. The older phrase “gun crime” more than halves the amount of annual incidents involving a gun. In 2022, for example, there were approximately 48,204 firearm-related deaths in the United States but suicides were 27,032 deaths, accounting for about 56% of all gun-related deaths. Homicides involving a gun, by contrast, were approximately 19,651 deaths, making up about 41% of the total of “gun violence” in the year.
Meanwhile, left-wing outlets like National Public Radio and Hyperallergic are framing the exhibit’s removal as a ‘cruel erasure’ of victims’ memories — ignoring the broader context of politicized federal overreach. Their coverage fails to mention that no such exhibit ever existed honoring victims of knife violence, gang shootings, or border-related crime — all of which statistically eclipse the types of incidents highlighted by the display.
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