[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 110 (Thursday, June 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4758-S4759]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             PUBLIC SAFETY

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, yesterday, President Biden announced 
that his administration would attempt to combat the alarming rise of 
violent crime unfolding in cities across our country by making it 
harder for law-abiding Americans to exercise their constitutional right 
to keep and bear arms. And today our colleagues on the Judiciary 
Committee voted on the nomination of a person the President intends to 
lead the effort. David Chipman was tapped to be Director of the Bureau 
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
  If he is confirmed, this nominee would bring to the job a dangerous 
and unprecedented hostility to the Second Amendment. We know it from 
his record as an anti-gun extremist, and we know it from the reputation 
he earned among ATF veterans as an ``activist'' and ``a rabid 
partisan.''
  It should go without saying that these are exactly the wrong 
motivations to encourage at the helm of the Agency charged with 
firearms enforcement. Then again, it should also go without saying that 
responsible gun owners don't cause surges in violent crime; they 
actually prevent them.
  Unfortunately, Democrats' latest bout of cognitive dissonance on 
crime didn't begin just this week. Let's consider what has unfolded 
over the past year. Last summer, across America, peaceful protests were 
overtaken by lawless rioters. For nights on end, violence and looting 
left cities in flames, and in too many State capitals and city halls, 
local officials froze under pressure from the left and failed to 
protect their citizens, their homes, and their businesses.
  In fact, at every level of government, elected Democrats instead 
rapidly embraced radical calls to ``defund the police.'' To the tune of 
hundreds of millions of dollars, they succeeded in gutting local law 
enforcement budgets and

[[Page S4759]]

validating the worst instincts of the anti-police agitators.
  The president of the Minneapolis City Council called on her 
colleagues to ``imagine a future without police.'' And sure enough, in 
Los Angeles, police were told to make do after a cut of $150 million. 
In Seattle, the police department budget shrank by nearly 20 percent. 
Defunding efforts here in Washington were passed by committee 
unanimously.
  The Biden administration has amplified these efforts by appointing 
avowed supporters of defunding the police, like Vanita Gupta and 
Kristen Clarke, to high-ranking positions at the Justice Department, 
the Agency charged with enforcing Federal criminal law.
  Now, we didn't have to imagine the consequences of betraying the 
brave officers charged with keeping the peace. Millions of Americans 
have been living this dangerous new reality literally for months. Last 
year closed with the Nation's sharpest 1-year increase in homicides in 
decades. In New York City, the murder rate jumped nearly 45 percent, 
and in my hometown of Louisville, it is already on pace this year to 
exceed last year's all-time record.
  New fears arose in communities across the country, and as Democrats 
flirted with their imagined future without police, Americans did 
exactly what you would expect of a free people: They looked to their 
own defense and exercised their Second Amendment rights in record 
numbers. The FBI processed nearly 40 million background checks on gun 
purchasers last year, shattering previous records. And, nationwide, 40 
percent of the guns sold last year were purchased by--listen to this--
first-time buyers. In particular, members of racial minority groups 
joined the ranks of gun owners in record numbers.
  So let's review. In city after city, powerful Democrats vocally 
refused to uphold their responsibilities to protect public safety. 
Violent crime filled the void. Against this backdrop, the American 
people chose to defend themselves by exercising a core constitutional 
right.
  But now, as Democrats at the State and local level play politics with 
public safety, Democrats here in Washington want to make gun ownership 
in America more burdensome than ever. Prominent voices on the left, 
including some of our colleagues, fanned the flames of a dangerously 
misguided experiment, and law-abiding Americans are paying the price.
  Here in the Senate, Republicans have been focused all along on making 
American communities actually safer. It is why we supported Tim Scott's 
efforts to pass police reform that empowered law enforcement to do 
their jobs very well rather than federalizing and defunding the police.
  It is the reason that Chairman Lindsey Graham and 46 other Republican 
Senators joined me today to demand publicly that the Department of 
Justice cease its efforts to restrict the use of common pistol-brace 
devices by lawful gun owners. We are talking about a plan that would 
turn millions of law-abiding Americans into criminals with a stroke of 
the pen. It would be an outrageous violation, and we expect DOJ to 
withdraw this attempted confiscation. Federal law enforcement should 
focus on the criminals committing violent crimes in American cities, 
not on law-abiding gun owners.
  So Republicans will continue to stand for Americans' Second Amendment 
rights, as a matter of public safety and of basic freedoms.

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