ATF Director Steven Dettelbach Says Banning ‘Assault Weapons’ on His Wish List

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) director Steven Dettelbach told Harvard Magazine one of his wish list items is a renewed ban on “assault weapons.”

Harvard Magazine published statements made by Dettelbach at Harvard Kennedy School as he was being interviewed by Caroline Light, the “director and senior lecturer in undergraduate studies of women, sexuality, and gender.”

At one point during the interview the audience was allowed to ask questions and someone asked him to name gun controls that are on his “wish list.”

Dettelbach listed universal background checks and reviving the 1994-2004 federal “assault weapons” ban.

WATCH — AWR Hawkins: Universal Background Checks = Gun Registry

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He said, “…We ought to consider and actually reinstate a ban on certain types of assault weapons.”

Dettelbach’s ATF has already put forward a proposed rule defining what it means to be a firearms dealer so as to expand the points of sale at which a background check is required.

When the rule was proposed, Breitbart News reported Dettelbach saying, “This new proposed rule would clarify the circumstances in which a person is ‘engaged in the business’ of dealing in firearms, and thus required to obtain a license and follow the laws Congress has established for firearms dealers.”

The proposed rule creates a paradigm in which gun owners will have to prove they are not gun dealers before selling a gun without a background check.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.