NRA victory over Biden’s ATF pick its biggest in a decade

“It was bad and ugly early,” said Jason Ouimet, the executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, the group’s lobbying arm.

But facing having a liberal gun-grabber pushing anti-gun Biden policies, which could include a new ban on AR-15-style firearms and sweeping new taxes on existing guns, the NRA and associated groups decided to dig in.

“We said look, win or lose, this guy’s terrible. Biden is politicizing that office like nobody’s business,’” recalled Ouimet in an interview with Secrets Friday.

“This nomination is inappropriate, it’s wrong, it’s not the right thing, and we’re gonna fight it with everything we’ve got. And if we go down, we’re going down swinging, but we’re sure as hell gonna fight the damn thing,” he added.

The first move was to buy time. The second was to target swing lawmakers, including centrist West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and others in pro-gun states, such as Maine.

The NRA set aside $3 million for targeted ads and millions of mailings and digital ads to fight Chipman, an executive with Gabby Giffords’s anti-gun foundation. It also set up dozens of town halls to whip up support for the battle.

Unlike political campaigns, the fight against Chipman was one of informing people of his past and what he would do if he became the head of ATF. Also, the NRA made the case against politicizing an office that has avoided it.

The NRA led the effort with ads in West Virginia and Maine to urge voters to contact lawmakers, including Manchin and Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent. Some 12 states were targeted with digital ads, and states were swamped with mail, with 600,000 mailings alone in Pennsylvania.

That had a big impact as gun owners realized what was at stake and lawmakers thought to be on the fence began to shift. Other gun groups, such as the National Shooting Sports Foundation, joined in as momentum built against Chipman.

Then the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Chipman took place, and more senators firmed up their opposition, especially as Chipman fumbled over basic questions, such as his definition of an assault weapon.

Top Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said, for example, “Many see putting a committed gun control proponent like Mr. Chipman in charge of ATF is like putting a tobacco executive in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services or antifa in charge of the Portland Police Department.”

Ouimet said, “That started to put some real momentum behind this and get people really engaged.”

Chipman was passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote, but a floor vote was stalled and then followed by the Memorial Day recess. In the meantime, critics dug further into his past and found concerning details.

For example, Steven Gutowski’s website, the Reload, uncovered evidence of racially explosive comments Chipman made while he worked at ATF. He also charted all the concerns lawmakers had with Chipman.

The NRA then launched a second wave of ads and attacks that pushed voters, already upset with Biden and gun control efforts, to slam the phones of wavering senators.

As senators lined up to announce their opposition, it gave cover for others to follow suit, and the numbers shifted to look to be a 50-50 vote. But it was souring further by earlier this month.

King was put under additional pressure, and while he didn’t announce his position on Chipman, it was notable that he also didn’t voice support for him either.

While that fight was going on, the ATF also warned gun owners about plans to tax and regulate millions of AR-style pistols legally owned and purchased and even threatened to change the definitions of gun parts that would make their weapons illegal and turn owners into criminals.

By this week, the White House saw it as a lost cause and withdrew Chipman’s nomination. The White House blamed Republicans, but it was the administration’s inability to hold Democrats together that doomed the nomination.

And for that, the NRA, other Second Amendment groups, and pro-gun lawmakers get the credit.

“I’ve been here 17 years. We’ve never done anything in the issue advocacy space of this magnitude since I’ve been here — a comprehensive approach that had to be sustained for months,” said Ouimet, the NRA’s top lobbyist since the ouster of Chris Cox two years ago.

Biden’s embarrassing defeat also came with a lesson both on guns and politicizing nonpartisan agencies such as ATF.

“I think it sends a message to Biden and all the rest of them that NRA members and gun owners don’t like these rules and regulations and our folks don’t want them implemented. And they sure as hell don’t trust anybody with that kind of influence who has been flacking for the gun control community for the last 10 to 15 years,” Ouimet said.

He added, “It’s a big win for every law-abiding American who owns a firearm and wants to own a firearm for any lawful purpose.”