The latest spiteful, cruel act of political pandering by the Trump regime hits especially hard in Broward, where we will never forget the 17 students and staff murdered with an assault weapon at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.

Jaime Guttenberg was one of the victims. She was 14. Her father, Fred Guttenberg, helped establish a memorial to Jamie and other gun violence victims at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in Washington.

I am so angry and upset about this. I was one of the people who worked with the ATF to create this memorial wall. 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… pic.twitter.com/MYzX2W7c73

— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) May 4, 2025

Jaime’s photograph was one of about 120 that were to be replaced by a new group this year, beginning a regular annual substitution (there are so many victims of gun violence, after all).

Now their images are gone.

Whitewashing gun violence

The ATF, part of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi, removed the “Faces of Gun Violence” exhibit and a kiosk that told the victims’ stories. They included fallen police officers and victims of school shootings at Parkland, Newtown, Conn., and elsewhere.

A spokesman denied the removal was political and said ATF is thinking of other, unspecified ways to honor victims, but his statement itself dishonored them. “The ATF will continue to honor the memory of all victims of violent crime while at the same time preserving the rights of law-abiding Americans,” spokesman Chad Gilmartin said.

There it is: Gun rights. A big, wet kiss to the National Rifle Association and the larger gun lobby, whose political clout makes the U.S. a conspicuous outlier for gun homicides among developed nations.

Our gun death rate is nearly five times higher than Canada’s. Tens of thousands of other victims could have been on that wall. Gun murders (not counting suicides) claimed nearly 18,000 U.S. lives in 2023.

The memorial removal was a profound insult to Guttenberg and all other survivors who mourn those whom the exhibit honored.

‘Where is Jamie’s picture?’

“I am so angry and upset about this,” Guttenberg posted on X. “I was one of the people who worked with the ATF to create this memorial wall. Jamie and some others from Parkland were on this memorial wall. Where is Jamie’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.”

Guttenberg told NPR his slain daughter had been “completely disregarded by this heartless administration” which could not care less “about my child or any child being gunned down in America.”

Nothing about the memorial disparaged the rights of law-abiding gun owners. But it did bear silent witness to the tragic consequences of lax gun regulations. Neither the NRA nor the politicians in its bulging pockets want that in their faces. Tough.

President Trump fawns over gun rights. One of his first returning decisions shut down the Office of Gun Violence Protection. His proposed budget would cut deeply into the ATF by nearly $500 million, about a third of its budget.

It “bolsters the Second Amendment by cutting funding for ATF offices that have criminalized law-abiding gun ownership through regulatory fiat,” the budget document says. That’s mere propaganda, and Congress would betray the nation by approving it.

Go easy on gun sellers

The ATF was directed to go easy on gun dealers and to stop revoking licenses from those who falsify records or sell guns without required background checks.

Bondi announced a task force “to advance, protect and promote compliance with the Second Amendment.” That sounds ominously like a plan to sue cities and states over laws, like Florida’s ban on rifle sales to people under 21, that the gun lobby doesn’t like.

Bondi restored gun rights to 10 people, including actor Mel Gibson, who lost them after criminal convictions. In Gibson’s case, it was for domestic violence.  A DOJ lawyer who refused to recommend Gibson’s restoration was fired.

The ATF memorial was created by the agency’s former director, Steven Dettelbach, who was appointed by President Joe Biden. That doubtlessly piqued the animus of Trump, who has yet to appoint a director for the ATF.

Before leaving office, the Biden administration reportedly had chosen the next group of victims to be honored in the exhibit.

Kris Brown, president of Brady United Against Gun Violence, said she and others advised ATF on the selection, and the families of those chosen were expecting the changes by April.

“For people who were already traumatized enough by gun violence, just the unceremonious lack of care taken here is deeply, deeply troubling,” Brown told NPR.

It should be just as deeply troubling to everyone.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.