Joe Biden announced that he will nominate gun control activist and former ATF agent David Chipman for the ATF.
David Chipman served in the ATF from 1988 to 2012, while in the ATF he was in charge of running the agency’s Asset forfeiture program, he lead the Detroit Field Division, and was the “case agent in the Branch Davidian trial” while working in the Waco, Texas field office.
After his career at the ATF he began lobbying for gun control. Chipman worked with the Mayors Against Illegal Guns group, which was founded by Bloomberg, and later the Giffords group.
In 2017 Chipman testified against the Hearing Protection act. The act was intended to make safety equipment including silencers more readily available. Chipman testified that this would lead to an increase use of silencers by criminals, this ignored the fact that illegal silencers can be made with household supplies with little to no difficulty. Chipman also perpetuated the myth that silencers dampen the sound made by a firearm to a point where a gun shot would be unrecognizable.
In 2019 Chipman told the House Judiciary Committee that Semi-automatic firearm’s said to be “assault weapons” are indistinguishable from firearms used by the military. Following this he argued that these firearms should be regulated extensively.
In the same hearing Chipman argued that “simply reinstating the 90s-era ban on assault weapons is not enough… Instead, we should regulate a broader class of firearms, including assault weapons manufactured before the law’s enactment.” He would go on to say that these firearms should be banned from even being manufactured.
Chipman is a gun control activist and will do serious damage to the 2nd amendment if he is confirmed. The Senate is evenly divided, but even when Republicans maintained control there was still difficulty in getting conservative measures passed. Senator Susan Collins could flip and that could result in Chipman getting appointed as the head of the ATF, Joe Manchin will need to stand up for the 2nd amendment in order to keep Chipman out of the ATF.
