"David Chipman is a radical anti-Second Amendment activist who should have never been considered to lead the ATF," says Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, the political arm of The Heritage Foundation think tank.
Chipman’s nomination was defeated, she says, because of a grassroots effort from “law-abiding gun owners” who stood up for their constitutional rights.
According to The Associated Press, Chipman’s nomination faced “bipartisan opposition” in the U.S. Senate after some Democrats privately told the White House they would not support him. Two liberal Republicans, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, also opposed him, the AP said, which doomed what the wire service called Biden’s “ambitious gun control agenda.”
Chipman is a former ATF agent but would have overseen the federal agency after working at Giffords, an anti-gun lobbying group where he worked as a senior policy advisor.
A spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation calls Chipman a “paid gun control lobbyist” and supported the Biden administration for withdrawing the nomination.
Anderson’s praise for grassroots opposition is seconded by Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation. He says Chipman was defeated because gun owners contacted their senators and voiced their disapproval.
“It is a major defeat for the billionaire elitists,” Gottlieb says, “who bankrolled the gun prohibition movement."
