WASHINGTON — The president’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, a day after an 18-year-old gunman slaughtered 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The government agency that regulates guns and enforces firearm laws hasn’t had a permanent director since 2015, and the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s nominee, Steve Dettelbach, has become even more urgent for the White House after Texas’ mass school shooting.
May 25, 202208:03
Dettelbach’s hearing comes at a critical time for the administration, which is facing pressure to deal with a spate of mass shootings, including at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store that left 10 people dead and three wounded this month.
Biden has faced an uphill battle in getting Congress to act on gun control legislation under the evenly split Senate. He nominated Dettelbach in April, several months after the White House was forced to withdraw an initial nominee, David Chipman, because some Democratic senators joined Republicans in opposing his confirmation.
It’s unclear whether Dettelbach has the support in the Senate to be confirmed. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., have said they’re looking at his nomination. They were both key skeptics of Chipman’s nomination, which faced Republican opposition over his support for various gun control measures, including an assault weapons ban. Dettelbach also expressed support for such a ban during his failed campaign for Ohio attorney general in 2018 and has backed universal background checks — issues that drew concerns from Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Biden announced his decision to nominate Dettelbach when he unveiled new restrictions on “ghost guns,” firearms people build at home that are untraceable to law enforcement. The final rule requires manufacturers of make-your-own gun kits to include serial numbers on the firearms and sellers to follow the same standards as with other guns, including requiring a background check for purchase.
As the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio during the Obama administration, Dettelbach oversaw more than 170 Justice Department employees. Since leaving that role in 2016, he has served as a partner at law firm Baker Hostetler, working on white-collar crime-related litigation. He previously worked on an organized crime and corruption task force while an assistant U.S. attorney in Cleveland, as an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland, and for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on the Senate Judiciary Committee as a detailee from the Department of Justice.
“Steve is immensely qualified,” Biden said. “He served the Department of Justice for two decades. He worked side by side to support the work of federal, state, and local law enforcement, including ATF agents. Steve also partnered with the community leaders and law enforcement to help prevent violent crime. He’s worked with the police to combat domestic extremism and to take violent criminals off the street.”
Dettelbach was recently endorsed to lead the ATF by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents over 26,000 law enforcement professionals across dozens of agencies.
Gun violence prevention advocacy groups such as Brady are calling on the Senate to immediately confirm Dettelbach.
“Less than 24 hours after the second deadliest school shooting in modern American history, the need for comprehensive gun violence prevention solutions has never been clearer. The need for a qualified, Senate-confirmed director to lead ATF is essential to any effort to prevent gun violence,” said Brady President Kris Brown. “Steve Dettelbach is well-qualified. He is a proven law enforcement leader and expert, and a prudent choice to steward and modernize ATF so that it can enforce the nation’s laws and keep our communities safe.”
When Biden announced the finalized rule on ghost guns in April, he also said his administration was working on other key gun control areas, including going after rogue gun dealers, disrupting illegal gun trafficking and funding community policing programs. It was his second attempt at using executive action to try to curb gun violence after he unveiled other initiatives a year earlier, several months after taking office. At the time, experts said that Biden’s actions would have a positive but limited impact.
After the Texas shooting Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., began a process that could lead to votes on two House-passed bills to expand background checks for gun purchases, although 60 votes would be needed to overcome a filibuster and advance the legislation to a final vote.
Frank Thorp V contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
