Now that gun control lobbyist David Chipman is no longer in the running to head the ATF, he’s letting it all hang out in terms of anti-gun rhetoric and smearing the gun industry. The Giffords employee has just put his name on a fundraising email that spins some fanciful excuses for his failure as a nominee to head the nation’s firearms regulatory agency.
Here’s the email blast Giffords sent out . . .
Hello,
I’m reaching out to you with an important request today. But first, I wanted to give you some background about how I got involved at Giffords.
Following my retirement from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) after 25 years, I was awed by the courage of Gabby Giffords. I was captured by Gabby’s activism after surviving an assassination attempt and returning to work tirelessly as a force for change.
I was nominated to become ATF director but unfortunately the White House had to withdraw my nomination after an unfounded and false disinformation campaign by the pro-gun National Shooting Sports Foundation. It is clear that the NRA, NSSF, and the rest of the gun lobby will stop at nothing to fuel the cycle of violence where gun manufacturers — absent fear of liability — profit as public safety erodes. More criminals causing more Americans to buy guns in fear of armed criminals is a corrupt business model.
I am disappointed I will not have the opportunity to lead ATF, but I refuse to be defeated. The stakes are simply too high and there is no other line of defense. That is why I am doing everything I can to help Giffords…
Did you catch that? Chipman would have Giffords’ would-be donors believe that the firearms industry’s business model is built on fueling a “cycle of violence.” Because, in Chipman’s noxiously delusional, orange-sky world, the gun industry cheers on and “fuels” violent crime in order to sell more guns.
Somehow, though, the fundraising email doesn’t get around to mentioning the police departments nationwide that have been had their budgets cut in the aftermath of the George Floyd riots. They don’t mention the “bail reform” polices that turn violent criminals loose on the streets to offend again and again. And they don’t mention big city prosecutors who either don’t prosecute accused criminals or negotiate slap-on-the-wrist sentences for serious, violent offenses.
Chipman and Giffords blame his defeat on the evil gun lobby in the form of the NSSF and NRA. The truth of the matter is that, while those two organizations played a big part in the opposition campaign, his nomination was fought by the entirety of gun nation. Regional, state, and national gun rights orgs, big and small got involved. Literally millions of gun owners contacted their senators. They made it clear that installing a registered gun control lobbyist as head of the ATF was a bridge too far.
That’s why bi-partisan opposition in the Senate killed his nomination. It wasn’t fake news or gun lobby disinformation, it was massive pushback by tens of millions of American firearm owners who value their Second Amendment rights that doomed his bid to run the ATF.
Chipman will never admit that, of course, because fundraising using lies about the big bad gun lobby keeps the dollars flowing for Giffords and the rest of the civilian disarmament industrial complex. ‘Send me more cash and I’ll defeat the gun industry.’ Or something. And so it goes.