Chip Roy Grills ATF Director About The Constitutional Rights For American Gun Owners

5 months ago

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) questioned ATF Director Steven Dettelbach about firearms.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Director. I think, as the Director knows, I was a

00:05prosecutor under Project Safe Neighborhoods in the U.S. Attorney's

00:10Office, worked closely with ATF in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. I share

00:17your sentiment about the patriotic Americans serving ATF trying to stop

00:22violent criminals from moving drugs and using firearms against the law in ways

00:33that are undermining the safety and security of the American people. And I

00:36want to thank those men and women for what they do every day in that

00:42service. But would the Director agree that there have been times where ATF

00:48have not gotten it right? I realize that with respect to the case we've already

00:54discussed, with respect to Mr. Malinowski, that you're saying that's an

00:59investigation, but you know, what about something like Fast and Furious? Of

01:02course, like any agency, there are times where we don't get things right and can't

01:06improve. So a couple of questions for you, you know, along these lines. I think it's

01:10really important for the American people to understand. Do you, as the Director

01:14of ATF, do you believe that the American people have a constitutional right, an

01:20individual right, to keep and bear arms? The Supreme Court has made it clear,

01:27and I, yes, the Second Amendment has been interpreted numerous times by

01:32the Supreme Court, just as you, there's more to it, but yes, what you have said,

01:36yes. Okay, and so the Director, you believe that? You interpret the Constitution that

01:39way? I interpret all the laws the way that the Supreme Court says they're to

01:45be interpreted, and when the Supreme Court speaks on something. Would you have said

01:48that about Plessy? I look, Congressman, I work for a law enforcement agency. I'm not

01:56a judge, but I accept the rulings of the court, including that one. I'm not dodging

01:59your question. Do you, as the Director of ATF, believe there is an individual

02:03constitutional right to bear arms? Yes, there is one. The Supreme Court has said

02:07it. It's along those lines. Do you, as the Director of ATF, believe that the

02:12federal government should maintain a registry or otherwise track, catalog, keep

02:21records of the transactions of firearms conducted by the American people such

02:27that you would know what firearms I possess? Congress has explicitly forbidden

02:35ATF from keeping a registry, and we do not. Again, we obey the law. We don't make

02:41the law. We obey it. Do you, as the Director, believe that the federal

02:45government should track ownership of firearms among the American people?

02:50Congressman, we follow the law as you put it, as you pass it. You have said we

02:56cannot have a registry. We follow that provision and will continue to as long

03:00as it's the law. As the Director of ATF, do you have a position on that? Should we

03:03track my ownership of firearms? As Director of ATF, my position is, if it's

03:08in the law, we follow it. If I want to sell a gun that I currently own to a

03:14friend in Texas, do I need a license? So, getting into the specifics of the rule,

03:22which is in litigation. So, first of all, this ought to be a really simple question. I

03:26understand. So, you look at the totality of the circumstances. If

03:31we're talking about an isolated sale from somebody who is not engaged in the

03:37business of dealing firearms, you don't need a license. Right. So, if I, a citizen,

03:41this country, I live in Texas, I have a weapon and I want to sell it to a fellow

03:45Texan. On an isolated basis, do I need a license? Again, if you are not engaged in

03:52the business of selling firearms, those are Congress's words. If I post a sale

03:57for a firearm last year, okay, and I do that on, you know, some relevant website

04:02like TexasGunTrader.com and I sell that weapon, I sell it for $500 and then I

04:09inherit a gun from my dad or from my uncle and I inherit it last month and

04:13it's like six months later and I sell it and I sell it for another profit. I sell

04:18it for $500 and then less than, you know, a year later, I have another weapon that

04:23I inherit or I've got and I decide I don't need anymore and I sell it. Is that

04:27engaging in the business? Is that engaging in activity that means I need a

04:31license? I think pursuant to the clear language of Congress in doing this and

04:36to the things we've said in the rule, we specifically mentioned inheritance as one

04:40of the things that is not indicative of engaging in the business. What if I have

04:45just 12, what if I have 12, 15 or 20 weapons and I sell three over the course of a year?

04:49I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. No, no, I'm just saying if I have, I have

04:53about 50, let's assume I had 15 or 20 weapons and I wanted to sell three over

04:56the course of a year. I think what we're, what I like to make money on my reaction

05:01to what you're saying is, is that you look at the, it's very clear that you

05:04look at the totality of the circumstances. We can go through an

05:07endless series of hypotheticals. Hypotheticals aren't the way we address

05:11cases. I realized them over my time. Do you understand why the average citizen

05:14sitting out there saying I've got 400 pages of rulemaking might not understand

05:18what they are allowed to do under the law when the director of the ATF can't

05:21look at a member of Congress and tell me yes or no emphatically whether or not if

05:25I sell a weapon or two weapons or three weapons or five, whether or not I need a

05:28license? Do you think that's the way the law ought to be or the rules?

05:32Respectfully, I believe that the rule that we have promulgated provides way

05:37more information and clarity than just the one or two sentences that

05:42Congress provides and we were seeing massive non-compliance. And you can't even answer how can the average

05:46American know it? We are in the business of knowing and we would look at the

05:53whole case and we would determine based on the... I'm sorry Mr. Chairman.

Chip Roy Grills ATF Director About The Constitutional Rights For American Gun Owners

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