CCRKBA to Trump: For ATF, ‘Pick A Pro’

Steve Dettelbach is out at the ATF. That’s not exactly breaking news because we always knew that was going to happen. He only looked good for the office because the nominee before him was David Chipman. Since taking on the job, Dettelbach hasn’t exactly been impressive, and we all know that if he stayed on, he’d likely continue finding ways to infringe on our right to keep and bear arms.

As it was, his tenure was marked by overreach and failure.

That means it’s on President-elect Trump to pick a replacement. For the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, there are parameters Trump needs to consider.

From a press release:

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is cheering the announced departure of Steven Dettelbach as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and is urging incoming President Donald Trump to appoint someone who will “run the agency, not politicize it.”

Dettelbach submitted his letter of resignation Dec. 20, and it becomes effective Jan. 18, just two days before Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. President.

“That’s one less person Trump will have to fire after he takes office,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb observed, “and it is one less gun prohibition lobbyist on the government payroll.”

Since playing a key role in helping Trump win the November election, American gun owners and Second Amendment advocates have been urging him to make replacing Dettelbach a priority. Grassroots activists want an ATF chief who adheres to the Second Amendment, and who “can tell the difference between the good guys and genuine bad guys.

“We’re delighted to learn Dettelbach will be gone and that President Trump will be able to place someone in authority at ATF who can turn that agency around,” Gottlieb stated. “The country needs someone at the ATF helm who will lead the agency, not weaponize it; someone who not only can define what an ‘assault weapon’ is, but also understands what it is not.

“We are hopeful the next ATF director will straighten the record by telling Congress, the media and the gun prohibition lobby that modern semiautomatic rifles are not ‘weapons of war,’ and that there is not, and never was, a ‘gun show loophole,’” he added. “The next ATF director should know how to disassemble a pistol instead of trying to regulate it out of existence. He should lobby Congress for funds to revive restoration-of-rights procedures, and stop harassment of lawful, small business firearms retailers. He should be someone willing to visit a gun show rather than shut it down. 

“For four years,” Gottlieb said, “the Biden-Harris administration has waged war on gun owners and the Second Amendment, with Dettelbach leading an ATF that helped make it happen. The next ATF director must be someone who recognizes law-abiding gun owners as allies, not enemies in the fight against crime, which is a battle we all want to win.”

Honestly, that doesn’t sound like too much to ask.

Look, I get that people don’t need to know the minutia of every little thing in order to know if something is an issue or not. I don’t need to know how to create DDT to know I don’t want to put it on my Corn Flakes. 

However, you do need to have a deeper understanding of just what you’re talking about before you start banning stuff, too. Dettelbach embarrassed himself with his anti-gun rhetoric while clearly not understanding even the very basics of the products he was in charge of regulating. 

Then, to top it off, as Gottlieb notes above, the ATF dropped the hammer on numerous gun stores over what were really just paperwork errors, treating them like they were selling guns illegally out of the back, and shutting down people’s livelihoods over those mild mistakes. It’s kind of hard to pretend that you’re not interested in infringing upon the right to keep and bear arms when that’s all you’re doing.

This is why I’m not sure any ATF director is going to be a permanent improvement.

Sure, Trump can nominate someone and they might even get him confirmed, but what about when he’s gone? There’s no guarantee that the next guy won’t pick up where Dettelbach left off.

Still, we’ll take what we can get.