Americans around the country don’t have any great love for the IRS. Now the agency is feeling the brunt of it.
And they are shredding documents after a Republican introduced this consequential bill.
House Republicans Challenge IRS Overreach with Bold Firearm Ban
As millions of Americans begrudgingly navigate the annual tax-filing ordeal, a group of House Republicans is taking aim at the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) bloated power, proposing a bill to strip the agency of its firearms and ammunition.
The move signals growing frustration with an agency critics say has grown too comfortable flexing muscle against hardworking taxpayers.
The “Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act,” spearheaded by Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., would slam the brakes on the IRS’s ability to purchase, store, or receive guns and ammo.
Instead, the agency’s existing stockpile would be handed over to the Administrator of General Services for public auction. Firearms would go to licensed dealers, while ammunition would be sold directly to citizens.
Every penny from these sales, the bill mandates, would flow into “the general fund of the Treasury for the sole purpose of deficit reduction.”
Moore, joined by Reps. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Mary Miller of Illinois, and Clay Higgins of Louisiana, argues the IRS has no business wielding weapons while squeezing Americans for their earnings.
“The IRS has consistently been weaponized against American citizens, targeted religious organizations, journalists, gun owners, and everyday Americans,” Moore asserted, according to a press release. “Arming these agents does not make the American public safer. My legislation, the Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act, would disarm these agents, auction off their guns to Federal Firearms License Owners, and sell their ammunition to the public. The only thing IRS agents should be armed with are calculators.”
Shifting IRS Enforcement to the Justice Department
Beyond disarming the IRS, the bill takes a scalpel to the agency’s enforcement arm. It transfers the Criminal Investigation Division—along with its personnel, assets, and authority—to the Department of Justice, where it would operate as a distinct unit within the Criminal Division.
This move, proponents say, would curb the IRS’s ability to act as judge, jury, and tax collector, reining in what many see as unchecked power.
The IRS, for its part, claims its “mission is to provide America’s taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and to enforce the law with integrity and fairness to all.”
Yet, critics like Moore argue this rhetoric masks a pattern of overreach, with armed agents intimidating citizens rather than serving them.
A Tax Day Call to Rein in IRS Excess
The proposal comes as taxpayers feel the sting of Tax Day, a yearly reminder of the IRS’s deep reach into their wallets. In an April 15 post on X, Moore drove the point home: “Tax Day is a great reminder that it’s time for the IRS to stop wasting our taxpayer dollars stockpiling guns and ammo.”
For many Americans fed up with bureaucratic bloat, the bill offers a chance to clip the wings of an agency they view as more bully than public servant.
