The gun-control lobby is growing impatient.
With major gun-control legislation yet to materialize and Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) stalled in the Senate, gun-control activists are calling on the Democrats to create a White House office.
In a letter addressed to Biden this week, four gun-control advocacy organizations lamented that Biden’s policies on firearms “fall significantly short of the promises you yourself made while running for the presidency.”
“Your administration is hard at work pursuing important priorities from infrastructure reform to reducing the disastrous impacts of climate change,” they wrote. “But with rising gun deaths and the heightened threat of armed political extremism, gun violence can no longer be seen as a back burner issue.”
The White House has nominated David Chipman to lead the ATF. As The New American has reported, Chipman has called for banning all “assault-type” weapons, including AR-15s.
When pressed in the Senate to give a definition of assault weapons, Chipman replied, “Any semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine above the caliber of .22, which would include the .223 which is largely, you know, the AR-15 round.”
Under such a definition, nearly every semi-automatic rifle would be banned — which is surely the aim of Chipman and Biden.
The prospective ATF head’s sordid record with regard to the Second Amendment has kept him from getting support from the few key Democrats needed to confirm, and thus his confirmation languishes in the Senate more than four months since he was nominated.
As a result, the gun-control activists who wrote to Biden urged him to establish a White House office led by an aide that does not need Senate confirmation, similar to Biden’s White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy. Additionally, they called on him to use the “bully pulpit” to sell gun control to the public and then push legislation through Congress.
Politico notes:
The groups — Guns Down America; March for Our Lives, which formed after the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting in 2018; Newtown Action Alliance, created in the wake of the 2012 school shooting in Connecticut; and Survivors Empowered, established after the Aurora, Co. theater shooting in 2012 — are seeking a meeting with White House officials and vowed to continue to push Biden to live up to his campaign promises.
“The president promised bold action over and over again … but he’s not really using all of his powers to tackle the issue of gun violence,” said Zeenat Yahya, deputy policy director of March For Our Lives. “When he wants to get things done, he does it. We’ve seen the infrastructure proposals, the Covid relief plan.… So I think it’s really up to him to get moving on these things.”
Biden supporters are beginning to worry that Democrats could be hurt in the midterms next year if he does not show legislative results on some of the key issues he promised to deliver on, including gun control, immigration, and police reform.
“We went to bat for him during the 2020 elections because he put forth the strongest gun violence prevention platform in modern history.… We need the president to take action,” said Newtown Action Alliance chair Po Murray. “We want to be able to drive voter turnout on this and it’s going to be really challenging if we don’t have any wins.”
Earlier this year, Biden announced gun-control executive orders banning “ghost guns” and “pistol braces” and ordering the Justice Department to write model “red flag laws” so that it’s easier for states to adopt them.
On the campaign trail, Biden said he wanted to repeal the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Doing so would make it easier for gun manufacturers to be held civilly liable for people who commit crimes with their products. Using that logic, should car manufacturers also be held responsible for all bodily and property damage made by irresponsible drivers?
He also affirmed a desire to “close the Hate Crime loophole” by enacting legislation prohibiting anyone “who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in its commission,” from purchasing or possessing a firearm.
Constitutionalists must see to it that Biden’s gun-control agenda goes nowhere.
