'You Put American Lives In Danger!': Victoria Spartz Reams ATF Director In Fiery Questioning

6 months ago

At today's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) questioned ATF Director Steven Dettelbach about regulations.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00 from Indiana is recognized. Thank you. Uh, Director Dittelbach, I wanted to

00:05 follow up on the something that Representative Massey was asking you

00:09 about January six pipe bomb investigations. It's over three years

00:13 since it happened. What are you still investigating? We are not the lead

00:17 investigative agency. It's the FBI. My understanding is from public really

00:21 reported. There's been over 1000 interviews conducted. My my they're

00:28 investigating the incident. But it seems like it's like you have a road

00:31 map and FBI not to answer questions. Everyone can hear and every question

00:36 with everything under investigation. It's very clever. You guys brilliant

00:40 not to answer Congress because everything on the investigation and

00:44 then when investigation and statute of limitation and over no one gets

00:48 punished and you continue with this and this has happened all the time. It

00:51 seems like your agency should do better than that. Investigate something over

00:55 three years. It seems like you should get to some conclusion. But my question

00:59 is related to this changes on your rule and definition. You know what is

01:03 engaging business rule? You know, do you think criminals that want to do

01:08 something criminal are going to read your 500 pages of definitions? Are

01:11 they going to read your 500 500 pages of definition explanations? I think

01:19 that I don't know who will read it, but I think criminals will be doing that.

01:23 I think that it will also encourage, as I said at the beginning, hopefully

01:28 increase compliance with the law among people who you understand that

01:33 criminals are not going to be reading this. Okay, but what is it going to do

01:38 to law Biden citizen like Brian Malinovsky that potentially was just

01:43 doing, you know, selling these guns and I don't know the whole circumstances,

01:46 but he's dead because he was not probably realizing what you were doing

01:51 and changes of this rule. So my question is for you is going to be, do

01:54 you understand how dangerous your definitions have become? Respectfully,

02:00 our definitions are based upon the law that Congress passed, and it is based

02:05 upon observation and experience in the field interpretation. So let's just go

02:10 to your definitions as a normal American. I understand your definition

02:14 implementation. Let me it's implementing Congress's law. Okay,

02:17 how are you going to implement? I want to understand I am a gun owner and

02:22 I'm going to decide occasionally say guys occasionally I can do maybe 100

02:26 times, maybe five times. You know what? I am not engaged predominantly profit.

02:30 You know that I don't even have time to do a profit. So at which point as

02:34 as a regular American citizen, so I understand that you are not going to

02:37 show up, cut off my electricity, show up to my house and try to storm

02:43 the house with a bunch of people that you don't even realize what's going

02:47 on. So I can be in situation like a lot of other Americans that not even

02:51 realize it. Now you redefining who is the dealer is. So I want to get

02:56 understanding. Summarize me understanding how I can explain to my

03:00 constituent what it means now and how I am predominantly earn a profit in

03:06 this. What is really definition of the statute that Congress passed says that

03:11 if you're engaged in the business of dealing firearms, quote, predominantly

03:15 for profit, right? That requires a license. There are some exceptions

03:20 and that Congress has passed and and respectfully, people may not read the

03:25 statutes either. They should, though, if they're if they're selling firearms,

03:28 these aren't possessors. These are people who are reselling firearms

03:32 repetitively for profit. And I don't think it's it's too much to ask for

03:37 somebody who is selling firearms repetitively for profit. What is

03:40 repetitive? What is occasional repetitively? If I decide, you know, I

03:44 have lots of guns and I decided to, you know, I want to replace with

03:47 something else. I have 50 guns. I'm going to sell this year. You can decide

03:51 that I'm for pro. I don't know. Maybe they will be for profit. Definitely. No

03:53 one, you know, was going to sell it at a loss, right? And with your rules,

03:57 probably prices I keep increasing. So, like, I'm going to become a dealer. Now

04:01 I have to be registering that again. I've tried to explain and I'm trying to

04:06 explain. So what do you do? What? What is really going to be now? Your new

04:10 definition? Because it's so broad. It's not a new definition. It implements

04:14 Congress's definition. Congress changed. Yes, 500 pages of explanation. So can

04:20 you summarize normally plain language and American can understand? I believe

04:25 that our positions are they're not secret. They're in court. They're filed

04:29 reading 500 pages that are confusing. Rule seeks by providing practical

04:34 conduct based things that normal people could. For instance, for instance,

04:39 you one of the things that can result in people, depending on all the

04:44 circumstances is you take credit cards for payment. That could be one of the

04:48 signs that somebody is in business. You read one of the things that might be

04:52 on the other side. One of the things that might be on the other side is if

05:00 you're occasionally dealing or gifting to family members, right? We try to say

05:05 things on my time and expire. But I'll tell tell you, you put American lives

05:09 in danger and your ATF live agent in danger by doing this because you're

05:13 doing gun control. It is very clever way to make everyone in dealer have a

05:17 zero tolerance and exercise gun control and Second Amendment rights. But you

05:22 put your people in danger and American people I yield back. And let yields

'You Put American Lives In Danger!': Victoria Spartz Reams ATF Director In Fiery Questioning

Category

Transcript

Recommended