Last week was an opportunity to celebrate the birth of our country and reflect upon how it upholds the God-given dignity and liberty of every individual. Everyone should treasure this legacy, but public officials must also be guided by it. For U.S. senators, that means blocking the nomination of officials such as David Chipman, who demonstrate a blatant disregard for our unalienable rights.
As state attorneys general, we defend the legal principles enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. We take the field to stand up for freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and the freedom to keep and bear arms. This doesn’t mean attacking everyone we disagree with — diverse viewpoints and debate are part of what makes this country great. It does mean holding everyone accountable to the law.
Our fellow public servants in the Senate fulfill a similar role. Senators have a responsibility to oppose the confirmation of public officials who have demonstrated disdain or disregard for the importance of the role they would serve. It is for this reason that we call on the Senate to reject Chipman’s nomination to serve as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Chipman has demonstrated that he is not an unbiased actor and there are concerns that he would use the ATF, and its vast resources, to target law-abiding gun owners instead of pursuing outlaws and criminal organizations that pose legitimate threats to public safety. Chipman has spent the past decade calling for radical gun control as an outspoken senior policy adviser and activist for various gun control groups. Recently, Chipman worked for an organization that defended Washington, D.C.’s complete ban on the possession of handguns, including in the home for self-defense.
In the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller v. D.C. decision, the high court vehemently rejected these extreme positions and affirmed the right to own weapons for self-defense was an “inherent” right of all people.
“A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all,” wrote the late Justice Antonin Scalia in the decision that found the Second Amendment to be an individual right. “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad.”
Chipman is not guided by that decision. In his recent Senate confirmation hearing, he essentially advocated for the ban of all semi-automatic rifles larger than a .22 caliber and called for more burdensome regulations on some popular guns under the National Firearms Act. By his own admission, his dramatic reinterpretation of the Second Amendment would likely require millions of people to pay an additional tax, submit to fingerprinting, and re-register their currently owned firearms with the federal government.
Of course, actions speak even louder than words. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chipman suggested gun shops should be shuttered. And as people strove to keep their families and property safe, Chipman mocked first-time gun owners and their safety concerns.
As a private citizen, Chipman is entitled to his opinions about gun ownership. The public, however, deserves public servants who will faithfully enforce the law and uphold their Constitutional rights — especially when they would serve as leaders of powerful federal agencies.
As our senators return to work this week, we urge them to uphold the American promise and reject Chipman’s nomination to serve as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Mark Brnovich is the attorney general of Arizona. Patrick Morrisey is the attorney general of West Virginia.
