Exercising the Right
We’ve Seen This One Before
If you follow politics related to the Second Amendment, you’ll soon realize that many actions of both Democrats and Republicans are nothing more than political theater intended to give the public the illusion of a battle between fiercely different ideologies. A perfect example of this is the continuous fight over the nomination of the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) within the Department of Justice. Back in 2006, the NRA successfully lobbied to require Senate confirmation for the president’s appointment to head up the ATF. In the 15 years that followed, nearly every appointment to head up the ATF failed to get confirmed by the Senate, leaving the ATF under the leadership of an “acting” director for 13 of those years.
Things appear to be no different with the Biden administration, as Time magazine reported on September 16 that Biden was forced to pull his nomination for ATF director, David Chipman. This was after contentious hearings in which Republicans grilled Chipman over his extreme anti-gun positions. One of the most heated moments was when Republicans questioned Chipman over his desire to ban “assault rifles” and asked him to define what an “assault rifle” is, and Chipman struggled with a coherent definition. In an embarrassing display of Republicans trying to engage in cancel culture over allegations of “racism,” Republicans even tried to call a second hearing on Chipman to delve into the details of some complaints from a black ATF agent over a remark Chipman allegedly made, which the agent perceived as racist.
Biden sensed that the nomination was going nowhere and eventually pulled Chipman. Supporters of the Second Amendment viewed this as a victory, and considering that Chipman spent his post-ATF career working for a far-left gun-control organization, he would obviously be a threat to the Second Amendment as director of the ATF.
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