One of the hardest positions for any Republican administration to fill is director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). ATF has numerous law-enforcement functions, many of which are relatively non controversial. For example it runs a sophisticated lab in Maryland for testing and studying arson. It also is involved in federal efforts against violent crime, like Project Safe Neighborhoods. At the same time it has frequently courted controversy, such as in the Ruby Ridge and Waco standoffs of the 1990s, and the Obama-era gun-walking operation “Fast and Furious.”
Most controversially for Republicans ATF issues firearm regulations and is the main federal point of contact for the domestic-arms industry. If you’re investigating gun crimes, what’s easier and safer, going after an armed straw purchaser and his gangster buyers, or the store owner from whom the straw purchaser illegally bought his gun? If you’re taking illegal guns off the street, do you want to go after MAC-10-wielding Latin Kings, or peaceable veterans with pistol braces? The temptation is tremendous to bring down the hammer on the generally law-abiding guilty of technicalities (malum prohibitum, as they used to call it) in lieu of the actual criminal class engaged in violent crime (malum in se). Indeed it only gets amplified during Democratic administrations given their twin ideological aversions to traditional crime fighting and the Second Amendment. As a result the influential gun lobbies of those law-abiding gun owners and dealers tend to view each ATF director with skepticism.
That ATF director nominees tend to come from the higher echelons of law enforcement compounds the problem. Cops, while generally a conservative lot, can have very mixed emotions about private gun ownership. This is understandable: It probably makes their jobs more dangerous. Urban law enforcement, in particular, can be disposed to view private firearms very differently from suburban or rural law enforcement simply because of how they encounter guns day to day. While it’s safe to say that your average cop supports the Second Amendment, it’s probably with the caveat “in moderation.” And if that cop rises through the ranks to significant leadership positions, he winds up articulating that view in various public contexts. That doesn’t sit well with Second-Amendment enthusiasts.
As a result, there have only been two Senate-confirmed directors since the position became subject to Senate confirmation in 2006. I was in charge of nominees on the Judiciary Committee when President Trump nominated Chuck Canterbury to run the agency in his first term. Canterbury was an upstanding cop — the former head of the Fraternal Order of Police — and a reliable ally of the president. He also had said cop-ish things about gun control and, as a result, never made it out of committee. Later even Biden had to go through two nominees to get someone confirmed. Biden’s first nominee, David Chipman, was detested by Second-Amendment supporters and was eventually taken down by the solid investigative work of independent journalist Stephen Gutowski and small but influential and mainstream gun groups you’ve never heard of.
Which brings us to Trump’s second term and his ATF nominee, Robert Cekada. Cekada has his hearing in the Judiciary Committee this week and — for the first time, perhaps, ever — an ATF director should reassure Republicans. Cekada isn’t a law-enforcement bureaucrat, he’s a tough-as-nails street cop. He started his career in the NYPD where he served on then-Mayor Giuliani’s famed and feared Street Crimes Unit (SCU), which was tasked with getting illegal guns off the streets in the most dangerous parts of the city, and which was a core component of Giuliani’s successful efforts to make New York safe. He’s gone on to have a remarkable career fighting violent crime and being put in charge of serious and difficult law-enforcement tasks — not because he’s a political apple polisher but because he’s a good cop and a good leader. He was made Deputy Director of the bureau this past April and under his stewardship it has moved consistently in the right direction.
Republicans should be excited that this important post will finally be filled, and filled by someone who will do the job well. Under Cekada, gone will be the days of tedious and illegal overregulation of firearms and the harassment of well-meaning, law-abiding citizens and businessmen. Instead the bureau will focus on what the people want and what the country needs: Combatting the scourge of gangs and violent crime. It’s what Cekada is good at, and hopefully he’ll be confirmed quickly.