As word of the impending resignation of Steve Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives made big headlines Thursday, lurking in the political weeds on Capitol Hill is the promise by Missouri Republican Congressman Eric Burlinson to introduce legislation to abolish the agency.
Reacting to Dettelbach’s conveniently-timed departure—just two days before Donald Trump returns for a second term as president—Alan Gottlieb at the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued a statement: “That’s one less person Trump will have to fire after he takes office.”
Trump appears determined to clean house of all of Joe Biden’s top bureaucrats, and he had already indicated Dettelbach would be dismissed. Critics have accused Dettelbach of “weaponizing” the ATF against small federally-licensed gun dealers, and against private citizens. He supports a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” and once during testimony before Congress, acknowledged he did not have the firearms expertise as some members of the House panel before whom he appeared.
Gottlieb expressed hopes Trump will appoint someone to head the agency who protects, rather than erodes, Second Amendment rights.
“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,” Gottlieb said.
“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.”
Dettelbach was Biden’s second choice to head the ATF after first submitting, then withdrawing, the nomination of David Chipman, a former ATF agent-turned-gun-control-advocate.
Dettelbach, 59, was confirmed and took over ATF in July 2022. He leaves Jan. 18, two days before the Jan. 20 Trump inauguration, as noted by Guns.com.
CCRKBA’s bristling statement on Dettelbach’s resignation made lots of media. Gottlieb was not subtle in his criticism of the departing ATF chief.
“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.”
But the threat of legislation to actually disband the agency—which has a decades-long history of controversy involving raids, not the least of which were the botched raid and subsequent “siege” at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas and, years later, the catastrophic Operation Fast and Furious which allowed thousands of guns to illegally be “walked” across the southern border to Mexican drug cartels—may hang over an effort to name Dettelbach’s successor.
According to Fox News, Burlinson’s proposal is not the first time such an idea was floated. An earlier bill was introduced by former-Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, but went nowhere. Burlinson was one of the members who cosponsored the Gaetz bill.
Guns.com quoted Burlinson as stating, “The Second Amendment doesn’t need a babysitter. The ATF’s job is redundant, dangerous, and unconstitutional. Let’s eliminate it.”
