The Patriot Post® · Biden's Clueless ATF Chief

In what resembled an episode of The Keystone Cops, Joe Biden’s director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Steven Dettelbach, demonstrated his disturbing lack of knowledge of firearms. He did so in a recent interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” while attempting to make the case for more firearm-related regulations.

To make matters worse, Dettelbach’s “leading expert,” acting ATF division chief Chris Bort, came along to help demonstrate the “ease” with which Americans can swap out firearm frames only to struggle to disassemble a pistol. He finally gave up and, picking up another pre-separated pistol, proceeded unsuccessfully to fit it together.

These two are supposed “experts” when it comes to firearms. As such, the federal government trusts them to run the agency whose express purpose includes regulating firearms. Yikes.

The truth is, this is what happens when an administration that is opposed to Second Amendment rights runs the ATF. The focus is not on protecting and upholding law-abiding Americans’ right to bear arms but on limiting these rights.

During the 30-minute interview, Dettelbach played right into CBS’s gun control narrative, failing, for example, to correct the false suggestion from host Margaret Brennan that the Second Amendment was created to protect hunting rights. Using this false premise, she expressed consternation at the firearms that Americans were allowed to own that didn’t fit this narrow view.

When Brennan asked about what issues acted as an “impediment” for the ATF, Dettelbach was quick to highlight the lack of a federal gun registry while he paid lip service to the agency following the law. What of Americans’ privacy rights?

Furthermore, Dettelbach pushed the flawed narrative that a lack of gun control legislation and supposed loopholes are making it too easy for criminals to get guns. Dettelbach asked, “Is it a problem that those same [criminals], who everybody agrees, and the law says, shouldn’t get guns, can easily get guns, maybe more easily than ever in the history of this nation?”

Really? Where’s the data supporting this claim? None was offered.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say it’s easier than ever for criminals to obtain guns. They certainly are not coming by them legally. Therefore, creating more laws that limit the rights of law-abiding gun owners does nothing to stop criminals from getting guns. Again, though, criminals are already not getting their firearms legally.

Ironically, the solution to “gun violence,” as the anti-Second Amendment folks so disingenuously label it, is actually the reverse of what Dettelbach advises. Increasing gun ownership among law-abiding Americans has proven to push crime down.

Criminals target the weak and vulnerable. There’s a reason why the vast majority of mass attacks occur in “gun-free” areas.