The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee at the end of last week to voice opposition to Biden’s ATF nominee Steve Dettelbach.
FPC sent Breitbart News an exclusive copy of the letter last week, providing insight into how their campaign to save the Second Amendment from Dettelbach is being waged.
The FPC letter, addressed specifically to Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), says, in part:
FPC not only opposes President Biden’s nomination of Steve Dettelbach to lead the ATF, we condemn his nomination as yet another naked attempt to weaponize federal law enforcement against peaceable gun owners nationwide. Dettelbach has spent much of his career supporting partisan platforms and the gun control movement.
Mr. Dettelbach’s embrace of “universal” background checks, published accounts of his support for “assault weapons” bans, and his promotion of anti-gun-owner causes are too radical for someone to be tasked with setting the policy and enforcement practices of the ATF. These positions mirror those of former nominee David Chipman and are equally disqualifying.
On April 11 Breitbart News noted the Hill’s report that Dettelbach was Obama’s Harvard Law School classmate.
Moreover, the Daily Mail observed that Dettelbach espoused support for various gun controls during an “unsuccessful” bid to become attorney general of Ohio in 2018.
The Mail explained that Dettelbach “has called for an assault weapons ban and universal background checks.”
FPC’s letter referenced Dettelbach’s “failed candidacy for Ohio Attorney General,” and the anti-gun rhetoric surrounding that candidacy, noting, “Mr. Dettelbach, as a nominee, is light on substance but heavy on partisan loyalty and anti-gun-owner ideology. The People of the United States, and peaceable gun owners, do not need a hostile ideologue leading a law enforcement agency tasked with regulating the firearms community.”
Second Amendment activist Joseph Gabriele of Littleton, Colorado gathers with other activists in support of gun ownership on January 9, 2013 at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver, Colorado. (Marc Piscotty/Getty)
FPC Policy Counsel Matt Larosiere told Breitbart News: “There’s no doubt that ATF has repeatedly broken the trust of the People, especially in recent years. An administration concerned with the rule of law would attempt to restore our trust by nominating someone who could dispassionately reign in the ATF and put a stop to its attempts to sidestep Congress and legislate by fiat. Instead, it seeks to appoint a known partisan who publicly espouses an aggressive anti-gun-owner ideology. The only right thing to do here is to immediately withdraw the nomination of Steven Dettelbach.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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