Steve Dettelbach, Biden’s second bite at the AFT director’s apple, has left a sour taste in the “mouths” of Republican governors and their attorney’s general. The former Obama-era US Attorney, as you might expect, has a history of anti-gun activism and the AG’s doth protest.
Dettelbach has a history of backing gun control measures, promoting several firearms restrictions during an unsuccessful 2018 campaign to become Ohio’s attorney general and making multiple posts on social media calling on America to take action in the wake of high-profile shootings. He told WOSU that he supported universal background checks and bans on so-called “assault weapons” during his campaign.
Republican AG’s doth protest but not enough, or should I say enough of them. The letter to Chuck Schumer is signed by fifteen AGs, from the states of Alaska, Arkansans, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.
Conspicuously absent? New Hampshire – a state with a pro-gun governor. Chris Sununu just signed a law removing restrictions that prevented law-abiding gun owners from carrying on a snowmobile or SUV. He’s sitting on a bill that, as law, would prohibit the state from enforcing many arbitrary anti-gun laws or presidential orders not already supported by existing state statutes.
But the Granite State is mum on opposing the nomination of a guy to an agency that already has a growing history of abusing power against gun owners.
Mr. Dettelbach has a long history of activism to restrict Americans’ gun rights, going back to at least 2013 when he appeared alongside representatives from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the predecessor organization to Everytown for Gun Safety. This group has been described as “Michael Bloomberg’s well-paid propagandists,” as they seek to restrict Americans’ right to defend themselves. Nearly a decade later, Everytown applauded the “Biden – Harris Administration for doubling down” and nominating yet another anti-gun rights leader for the ATF.
Despite this outright hostilitytoward Americans’ gun rights,President Bidenhas tapped Mr. Dettelbach to lead the federal agency tasked with regulating the fire-arms industry. This industry helps power our economies and provides jobs in manyof our communities. In recent years, the ATF has proposed various rules that over-step the authority Congress has granted it, threatening those jobs and the rights ofour constituents
Dettelbach is a constitutional threat, but New Hampshire has again chosen the wallflower role, quietly watching without comment. That happened during NH resident Hal Shurtleff’s free speech case, which he won before the US Supreme Court.
I suppose you have to pick your battles, but with a motto like Live Free or Die, you’d think a Republican governor would be inclined to step up in the name of liberty and add his name or that of his AG to any action in the pursuit of liberty.
Or not, if you are also a Republican governor who, along with his AG, abrogated constitutional rights during the so-called pandemic.
Or maybe he’s just being a Sununu. Don’t irritate the lords and ladies inside the Beltway. You’ll need their indulgence if the sh!t hits the fan, and you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of their barbed wire fence.
