David Chipman, President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF), said in 2019 on national television that it is frustrating the U.S. government cannot violate people’s right to bear arms if they use “hate speech” on the internet.
“The frustration is in the United States the freedom of speech and to say things is largely cannot be regulated,” Chipman said on BBC. ” …We have to do more to monitor hate speech on the internet. But we also have to do more to curb that same speech being presented by our president and other elected public officials.”
“The FBI, other federal agencies, have a tough job responding to these threats when they don’t currently have the authority to remove weaponry just because people are saying hateful things,” he also said.
The definition of “hate speech,” of course, is in the eye of the beholder, giving the most censorious persons increasing power decide what others may think and say.
The segment was in relation to shootings in Ohio and Texas that left 30 dead. Chipman was proud to have lamented the U.S. Constitution, sharing the media hit on Facebook with the caption, “The BBC wanted to know if the President’s response to this weekend’s mass shootings was adequate. I was able to answer that question.”
Chipman, a registered gun lobbyist who has been widely opposed by Second Amendment groups, also said in the interview “we have to look at the weaponry that is on the streets.” The remarks align with his stance to ban AR-15s and “assault weapons.”
Spokesman Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation told The Federalist the video makes “clear that he sees our God-given liberties of free speech as a “frustration” and feels it necessary to “curb’ not one, but two rights that are protected by the Constitution.”
“This interview is indicative of why the firearm industry opposes Chipman’s nomination,” Oliva said. “He has proven himself to be unworthy of a position of public trust time and again.”
