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The Trump administration is moving to dismantle more than three dozen federal firearms regulations, a sweeping reversal that would weaken oversight of gun dealers, loosen rules on private weapons sales, and restore gun rights to some people previously restricted because of mental illness or an inability to manage their finances, The New York Times reports.

The rollback is centered on the ATF, the federal agency that enforces the nation’s gun laws. Critics say the changes mirror the wish list of gun owners and firearms manufacturers while coming at a time when the agency has already been strained by the reassignment of hundreds of officials to immigration enforcement.

“With the Biden regulations that we got and put in place, we advanced the ball,” said Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

But Trump’s approach, she said, “takes us back 100 years.” She added, “It’s really decimating A.T.F.’s ability to regulate this industry.”

The White House has defended the shift as part of Trump’s promise to protect Second Amendment rights, arguing that the Biden administration used the regulatory process to restrict gun ownership without Congress. Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry’s trade group, said the changes are intended to make the rules clearer for gun businesses.

“We want clarity to know how we’re going to be able to conduct business,” he said, “to be able to produce and to be able to sell firearms in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern our industry.”

The administration has already scrapped Biden’s zero-tolerance policy for gun dealers who repeatedly violated the law. It’s also targeting state and local gun restrictions, challenging bans on semiautomatic rifles in Colorado, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, and suing California over limits on Glock and Glock-style handguns.

Trump, who vowed during the 2024 campaign to be “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House,” signed an executive order shortly after taking office directing the attorney general to review what he called “ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens.”