Joe Biden has long expressed support for bringing back the assault weapons ban that was in effect from 1994-2004, and his ATF nominee David Chipman admitted that he supports the same.
As Fox reported:
President Biden’s nominee to head the ATF David said that he is in favor of a ban on AR-15 rifles.
“With respect to the AR-15, I support a ban as has been presented in a senate bill and supported by the president,” Chipman told Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Cruz said the AR-15 was “one of, if not the, most popular rifle in America.
“The AR-15 is a gun I was issued on the ATF’s SWAT team, and it’s a particularly lethal weapon. Regulating it as other particularly lethal weapons, I have advocated for. As ATF director, if I’m confirmed, I would simply enforce the laws on the books, and right now there is no such ban on those guns.”
For reference, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report statistics from 2019 found that “at least 4 times more people were killed with knives than ‘assault rifles.’”
Chipman said he supports Congress acting to ban all “assault weapons” and AR-15s. He said he would support adding such weapons already in circulation to the National Firearms Act, which requires registration and a tax stamp, among other restrictions.
Pressed by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to define “assault weapon,” Chipman said that was up to Congress. But Cotton asked Chipman how he personally would define the term. Chipman said the only definition he could recall ever being used by the ATF was “any semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine above the caliber of .22, which would include the .223 which is largely the AR-15 round.”
Back in March Senators Feinstein and Cicilline introduced an Assault Weapons Ban bill with 34-sponsors. The bill has been introduced but no subsequent action has been taken.
Their bill includes a grandfather clause to all weapons owned on the date of enactment (which would just lead to everyone rushing to purchase them before the ban takes effect). It would ban any semiautomatic rifle that accepts a detachable magazine or has a “pistol grip,” “forward grip,” folding or telescoping stock, “grenade launcher (lol),” “barrel shroud,” or “threaded barrel.” While the 1994 assault weapons ban required two or more “military features” on a gun to be banned, her new version only requires one.
Fortunately, the filibuster makes passing this kind of legislation impossible at the moment.
Matt Palumbo is the author of Dumb and Dumber: How Cuomo and de Blasio Ruined New York, Debunk This: Shattering Liberal Lies, and Spygate
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