Steve Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), announced in a letter to President Joe Biden (D) that he will resign from his post on January 18, two days before Donald Trump (R) is inaugurated as president of the United States.
“It was the honor of my professional career to serve at ATF in your Administration. As you said when nominating me to be ATF Director, ‘The mission of this agency isn’t controversial. It’s public safety,’” wrote Dettelbach. “I have now seen the brave and talented people at ATF live out your words for years. And we have realized results.”
Dettelbach was nominated to the position after Biden’s first nominee, David Chipman, was unable to make it through the nomination process. Like Chipman, Dettelbach was a clear proponent of every gun-control measure Biden desired.
“Dettelbach was ultimately confirmed, and under his ‘leadership,’ the ATF did everything it could to execute the Biden agenda of eviscerating the Second Amendment. It also faced an incredible number of legal challenges to rules the agency implemented without corresponding legislative mandates from Congress,” wrote the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA).
His tenure as head of the ATF was marked by numerous attempts to circumvent and stifle the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans. This included, but is not limited to, advancing bans on commonly owned firearms, harassing gun stores, attempting to redefine what exactly constitutes a firearm and much more.
Incredibly, Dettelbach was unable to define what an “assault weapon” is during a congressional hearing despite previously championing bans on such firearms while running for attorney general of Ohio just a few years prior.
He has also been instrumental in reinterpreting the dubiously named Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which the NRA prophetically warned would be abused in pursuit of an anti-gun agenda.
Likely at Biden’s bidding, Dettelbach attempted “to create a new rule that controls when individuals engage in sufficient commerce in firearms so as to need to be licensed under federal law as a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL). Under the rule, Biden’s ATF went well beyond statutory authority to fabricate presumptions of when an individual needs to be an FFL. The rule even hedges its bets against its own legality by claiming it is not meant to apply in criminal proceedings (the most common enforcement actions against unlicensed dealers),” as reported by NRA-ILA.
Perhaps worst of all was the war on gun stores under Dettelbach’s “leadership.” In short, an executive order from Biden directed Dettelbach’s ATF to make life as difficult as possible for firearms dealers. This was done by implementing a “zero-tolerance policy,” which may have punished the “rogue,” “dishonest” gun dealers Biden claimed to be after, but also unfairly penalized law-abiding dealers for simple paperwork errors. As a result, the number of federal firearm licensees decreased by more than 1,600 since Biden took office.
“The new ‘zero-tolerance’ policy has a clear aim of reducing the number of federally licensed dealers, which will in turn make it more difficult for law-abiding Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” reported NRA-ILA.
Dettelbach’s resignation is welcome news for those who understand and cherish the Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms. America’s 1st Freedom will keep you informed on whoever incoming-President Trump nominates to fill this post.
