ATF Experts Show Shocking Lack of Firearms Knowledge on National TV

ATF must be abolished. And the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Director Steven Dettelbach and one of the Bureau’s leading firearms “experts” and acting head of the Firearms Ammunition Technology Division (FATD), Chris Bort, appeared on the CBS show, Face the Nation. What was supposed to highlight “deadly weapons” taken off American streets put a spotlight on the lack of knowledge on firearms from the ATF’s top brass.

The interview started with Mr. Dettelbach and Mr. Bort showing CBS reporter Margaret Brennan a fully automatic AK variant and explaining that it cannot be acquired unless people had it before 1986. What the ATF is referring to is the Hughes Amendment that blocks any machine gun produced after April of 1986 from being added to the National Firearms Act (NFA) registry. Machine guns produced before 1986 can still be legally transferred between private citizens with a $200 tax stamp. Dettelbach then showed a semi-automatic version equipped with a bump stock and tried to argue it was the same thing.

Although the ATF now considers bump stocks to be machine gun conversion devices regulated under the NFA, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with the ATF and sided with Michael Cargill in Cargill v. Garland. That case was argued in front of the Supreme Court of the United States last week, and SCOTUS is expected to hand down an opinion by the end of the year. It seems like the ATF is running a public relations campaign to scare the public.