The Trump administration has removed a photograph display honoring the victims of gun violence at the Washington, DC, headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The law enforcement agency, part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), will “continue to honor the memory of all victims of violent crime while at the same time preserving the rights of law-abiding Americans,” said a DOJ spokesperson in a statement shared with Hyperallergic. The words “law-abiding Americans” are an apparent reference to the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, a cause President Trump has vigorously defended while downplaying the gun violence public health crisis.
Commissioned by the Biden-appointed former ATF Director Steven Dettelbach last April, the “Faces of Gun Violence” exhibit was taken down at the direction of Trump officials who disagreed with the memorial, the Washington Post reported.
The display featured 118 portraits of people who lost their lives to gun violence in the United States, including children killed in mass school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School; victims of domestic abuse; members of law enforcement, and others. The exhibit was regularly visited by their families and friends, many of who saw it as a site of remembrance. An accompanying digital kiosk presenting the biographies of each individual was also removed, as was its online counterpart.
A source who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity said some ATF officials felt the memorial’s central placement in the atrium of the building could be traumatizing for staffers with a history of responding to violent crime incidents. A memorial for law enforcement officers killed on duty is still on view on the ground floor, however.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jamie was murdered in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, took to social media to decry the removal of the display, which he said he helped create.
“I am so angry and upset about this,” Guttenberg wrote on X today. “Jaime & some others from Parkland were on this memorial wall. Where is Jaime’s picture now? In the trash? If you are someone who voted for Trump, you voted for this. My ability to forgive you just got harder.”
In public appearances during his campaign and in executive orders immediately following his inauguration, Trump has continuously emphasized his support of gun ownership. “They are coming for your guns,” Trump said in a speech at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention last May, repeating the spurious claim that Democrats plan to repeal the Second Amendment.
The NRA was the largest outside spender in President Trump’s first election, injecting more than $30 million into his campaign in 2016. Emails obtained by the Guardian in 2020 showed that Trump gave special treatment to the gun lobbying agency, allowing it to influence policy and personnel decisions.