Second Amendment advocates aren’t pleased with a pair of moves by President Joe Biden’s administration that they call infringements on gun rights.
The White House said it plans to nominate Steve Dettelbach as director of the federal agency that regulates gun purchases, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. At the same time, the administration plans a crackdown on “ghost guns” — unserialized firearms that law enforcement is increasingly finding at crime scenes in cities across the country — in order to decrease gun-related crimes.
A new rule by the administration redesignates the purchase of gun-making kits, which allow buyers to assemble the weapons at home, as firearm sales and requires that third-party dealers who sell these kinds of guns register them.
BIDEN TO UNVEIL NEW ATF NOMINEE STEVE DETTELBACH AFTER DAVID CHIPMAN DRAMA
House Judiciary Committee Republicans tweeted in response that “Biden’s gun grab is coming.”
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican, took to Twitter to bash the new rule.
“The Constitution does not authorize the federal government to prevent you from making your own firearm,” he said Sunday night. The president doesn’t have the constitutional authority to codify such a rule into law, Massie added.
The Constitution does not authorize the federal government to prevent you from making your own firearm. This a fact that has been recognized for 200+ years. Also, Article 1, Section 1 (literally the first operative sentence in the Constitution) says Congress makes law, not POTUS! pic.twitter.com/vTFRvKYTVi
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 11, 2022
Oklahoma Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin used the rule as fodder for his Senate campaign, calling it political cover for Biden’s inability to deal effectively with rising crime rates nationwide.
Joe Biden would rather create a national gun registry and take away your constitutional rights than confront his soft-on-crime policies that are putting our communities in danger. As your next Senator, I will always fight to defend our #2A rights. https://t.co/z4e7iThvst
— Markwayne Mullin (@MarkwayneMullin) April 11, 2022
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Biden will announce the rule and Dettelbach’s nomination in the Rose Garden on Monday afternoon alongside Vice President Kamala Harris and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote an op-ed in USA Today defending the new regulations as helpful in reducing “the number of untraceable firearms flooding into our communities. And they will achieve these important law enforcement objectives while respecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans.”
This is Biden’s second attempt at installing an ATF director after Republicans sank the nomination of David Chipman last fall for his ties to gun control advocacy.
