David Chipman, a gun-control advocate who is Joe Biden's pick to head up the ATF, said on Wednesday that he would ban the most popular rifle in the U.S. and hinted that he would confiscate AR-15s already in the possession of Americans.
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley likened confirming Chipman to “putting Antifa in charge of the Portland Police Department.”
Asked by Sen. Ted Cruz during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing if he would ban the AR-15, Chipman responded: “With respect to the AR-15, I support a ban as has been presented in a Senate bill and supported by” Biden.
“The AR-15 is a gun I was issued on ATF’s SWAT team, and it’s a particularly lethal weapon and regulating it as other particularly lethal weapons, I have advocated for,” Chipman said.
Cruz then asked: "So you also said when you and I talked yesterday in the office that Senator Feinstein's bill, which a super majority of senators voted against in a Democratic Senate. You said that Bill didn't go far enough and you wanted an even broader ban. You said it didn't go far enough. Is that right?"
Chipman responded: "What I did say is that Senator Feinstein's bill did not address those firearms that are currently in the possession of Americans. And then I did share with you my view as an advocate, which would be quite different than someone actually enforcing the law on the books, that those firearms could be treated under the NFA and regulated that way, which would deal with those currently in the possession of Americans."
Grassley said: “Day to day, ATF plays a significant role in the legal trade of firearms in this country. Many see putting a committed gun control proponent like Mr. Chipman in charge of ATF as like putting a tobacco executive in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, or Antifa in charge of the Portland Police Department.”
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton noted that Chipman is a “notorious gun-grabber” who wants to ban “tens of millions of firearms.”
During an interview on Fox News's "The Ingraham Angle", Cotton said he had asked Chipman on Wednesday which “assault weapons” he would like to see covered by gun control legislation.
“He couldn’t answer it, Laura,” Cotton said. “The reason he can’t answer it is, there is no such thing as an assault weapon. It’s a term that’s made up by liberal lawyers and pollsters in Washington who are trying to scare Americans into acquiescing and to gun confiscation.”
During his confirmation hearing, Chipman suggested that the ATF defined an assault weapon as “any semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine above the caliber of .22, which would include a .223, which is, you know, largely the AR-15 round.”
Cotton described that response as “very illuminating and very troubling.”
“That would be almost every modern sporting rifle in America,” Cotton said. “We’re not taking about millions of firearms, we’re talking about tens of millions of firearms that Joe Biden’s ATF nominee wants to outlaw and confiscate.”
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