Congress
Posted by Charlie Kirk Staff - 4.19.23

Biden's ATF Director Can't Define 'Assault Weapons' But Wants to Ban Them Anyway

Biden's ATF Director Can't Define 'Assault Weapons' But Wants to Ban Them Anyway

Congress
Posted by Charlie Kirk Staff - 4.19.23

Steve Dettelbach, selected by President Biden to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), appears to be following a trend seen among other Biden administration officials who have struggled to answer seemingly basic questions from legislators related to topics that fall within their area of responsibility.

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing focused on the ATF’s FY2024 budget, Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-TX) asked Director Dettelbach to provide a concise 15-second explanation of the term “assault weapon,” which President Biden and Democrats have advocated for banning in order to reduce gun-related crimes in the United States.

However, Dettelbach was unable to provide an answer during his testimony, leaving the question unanswered, Townhall noted.

“I’ll go shorter than that because I, honestly, if Congress wishes to take that up, I think Congress would have to do the work, but we would be there to provide technical assistance,” Dettelbach told Ellzey.

Townhall’s Spencer Brown responded: “Huh? So, the man in charge of ATF doesn’t even have a guess when it comes to defining a firearm type that is mentioned and demonized almost daily by the White House?”

Dettleback continued: “I, unlike you, am not a firearms expert, to the same extent as you maybe, but we have people at ATF who can talk about velocity of firearms, what damage different kinds of firearms cause, so that whatever determination you chose to make would be an informed one.”

WATCH:

Spencer opined further:

President Biden, his administration, and Democrats in Congress have insisted that “assault weapons” be banned, even though the term is only a buzzword that Biden’s own ATF director — and likely Biden himself — can’t define. That’s because anything can be an assault weapon. A rock, a rifle, a handgun, a person’s fist, a squirrel swung with enough velocity. 

But the lack of specificity of the term hasn’t stopped Democrats from renewing their push to ban “assault weapons.” Nor has the fact that the previous iteration of the ban on “assault weapons” did not — according to the federal Department of Justice and other left-of-center studies — cause a reduction in the number of gun crimes nor the lethality of those crimes. Biden claims to be the previous ban’s mastermind, but it didn’t work — no matter how many times the Biden administration claims the opposite is true. 

In recent days, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was called out by The FirstTV host Dana Loesch, a former spokesperson for the NRA, after the Biden official falsely claimed a previous ‘assault weapons’ ban was effective at reducing gun violence.

“So, the Biden administration is wrong about the efficacy of bans on ‘assault weapons,’ the Biden administration can’t even define the term, and its ATF director is — by his own admission — lacking basic knowledge about firearms,” Spencer added.

Poll

Join the Newsletter