By: Teresa Mull
Joe Biden has nominated an anti-gun radical to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). David Chipman is a career bureaucrat who left the ATF after two decades as an agent and has since been working to advance the agenda of various anti-gun organizations.
Chipman has voiced support for every civilian disarmament policy you can imagine, including so-called “assault weapons” bans, firearm registration requirements, and red flag gun confiscation. (Read more here.) He’s also said he think we should be arresting people “before they commit a crime.”
During his Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, Chipman made a fool of himself. When Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy (R) asked, “What’s an assault weapon?” Chipman stuttered and added with a chuckle:
“The bill to ban assault weapons is dozens of pages long. There’s no way I could define an assault weapon.”
Of course, Kennedy didn’t let him get away with it. The forthright senator responded, “You’re gonna run this agency and you don’t have a definition of an assault weapon?”
The Senate Judiciary Committee vote kept being delayed, but just yesterday, the committee voted 11-11 to confirm Chipman.
The Firearms Policy Coalition reports:
In peak Washington Swamp style, the committee still has the power to punt Chipman’s nomination to the full Senate.
However, before the Senate can hold a final vote on Chipman, the Senate must also hold a vote to bring him to the floor.
The Senate could act at ANY MOMENT to accept his nomination from committee and schedule a FINAL vote.
In a somewhat surprising twist, Maine’s Susan Collins said she would vote against Chipman because he is “unusually divisive.”
It’s time to turn up the pressure on our senators to stop the disaster that would be David Chipman as director of the ATF.
Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine.