Why All Americans Should Oppose An Atf Nominee Who Wants to Ban Their Right to Self-Defense

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Speaker, I oppose the nomination of Steve Dettelbach to Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

Our right to meaningful self-defense, and the concomitant right to bear arms, was so important to the Founders that it preceded the right to due process, a speedy trial, and reasonable bail. That is how dangerous the Founders knew a tyrannical government could become. In order to protect those constitutional rights and those in the First Amendment--the right to speech, press, and assembly--citizens must have the means to do so.

And this right is not protected by the Constitution alone. It--and the very closely related right of self-defense--is a civil right as well--or a right that serves to guarantee America's foundational tenet of equality under the law.

All of President Biden's recent actions point to a very simple goal-- he wants our guns. By taking our guns, he takes our right to self- defense. Coming at a time when crime is at record levels in most democrat-run cities, self-defense is not a theoretical discussion. The news is filled daily with citizens being attacked, raped, assaulted, maimed or otherwise hurt by assailants. Good people have the right and duty to defend themselves and their family. And, we have seen government overreach as well--tyrannical tendencies by the Biden Regime to imprison its political opponents and political dissidents. Currently almost 800 Americans have been arrested, many denied bail, for trespassing and other minor violations relating to January 6th, even though the favored criminals of the regime who looted, burned and murdered in the name of racial justice in 2020 walked away Scot free.

In a country that has enshrined the right to self-defense, the mere existence of the ATF is anathema to the Constitution. We have no government agency running roughshod over newspapers and radio stations seeking to ``constrain'' and ``limit'' the First Amendment. We have no government agency cracking down on the unbridled expectation and right to be secure in one's possessions. But we do have the ATF, whose mission is to violate a constitutional right.

The ATF recently and cleverly changed the definition of machine gun so that more guns would be considered illegal. ATF was caught red- handed recently compiling a registry of gun owners--an action explicitly contrary to federal law. And the DOJ just decided to serialize thousands and thousands more firearms and expand the registry already approaching one billion records.

The Biden administration wants there to be as big a paper trail as possible against those wishing to exercise their constitutional right. And we know the ATF is making lists of gun owners who made legal purchases--and just announced plans to expand that list. Why would they need all this information? Because with more information, the easier it is to confiscate. The easier it is to blacklist. Citizens who oppose the regime have been added to secret lists in the hopes of prohibiting gun ownership. Without charges. Without a trial. And usually without notice. All of these ATF abuses are unconstitutional.

If Biden were serious about violent crime, he would be funding our police officers and rebuking Soros district attorneys for aiding and abetting violent criminals. Over 33 percent of first-time gun buyers in 2021 were women. Guns allow women to stand up to criminals who would otherwise overpower them.

The cure to rampant violent crime is well known by criminologists. Enforce the law. Every time. Throw violent thugs in jail for decades. Throw drug dealers in jail. For decades. Federal laws that did this in the 1990's worked wonders in reducing crime. The problem of violence is not an inanimate object. It is not a gun, a knife or a car that is to blame. It is always, always, in every instance, the operator of the gun, the knife or the car. Inanimate objects have no free will or ability to commit crimes. It is long past time we stop pretending they do. People are responsible for their own violent actions. The millions of law-abiding gun owners shall not be punished for the transgressions of the violent minority.

I am pursuing legislation in many areas to protect our right to defend ourselves from government. As the purpose of ATF's existence is to harass and criminalize gun ownership, it must be eliminated. I also support bills that codify a federal right to self-defense, prohibit the administration from criminalizing many legal guns owned by Americans for decades through crafty and illegal regulatory maneuvers, defund federal attempts to prop up state registries of gun ownership, and nullify all ATF regulations approved by this gun-grabbing administration.

The ATF nominee Dettelbach is of the apparent opinion that guns have free will and he blames the guns for violence. He is thus in favor of disarming as many people as possible. I have no confidence he will oppose Biden's radical agenda to destroy our Second Amendment, which is not only unconstitutional but immoral and a threat to democracy. I oppose his nomination and I urge all senators to oppose this radical and his usurpation of Constitutional rights.

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