Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) used House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan's (R-OH) hearing on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to point out what would happen if Republicans succeed in abolishing the agency.
At the Thursday hearing, Nadler posed the question about shutting down the ATF to agency Director Steven Dettelbach.
"If Republicans were to succeed in their effort to abolish the ATF, how would that affect public safety, particularly gun violence in this country?" Nadler asked.
"Protecting Americans from violent crime, including firearms violence, was, is, and will always continue to be ATF's top priority," Dettelbach said. "We investigate the most dangerous, worst of the worst. The people who are out there, trigger pullers, terrorizing our communities."
ALSO READ: 'A fantasy of manhood': Are frat boys the new Proud Boys?
Nadler pressed: "But if the Republicans were to succeed in their effort to abolish the ATF, how would that affect public safety?"
"Well, all of that would go away," the ATF director stated. "Our state and local partners who are asking for more ATF, they would be robbed of any ATF."
"It would be, all the cases that we do, all the gangs we prosecute, the RICOs, the VICARs, the cartel cases, all the things we do, would disappear," he added.
Before turning over the microphone, Nadler pointed to a letter "that explains the risk that unserialized firearms or ghost guns pose to the public, their proliferation among guns found at crime scenes, and the numerous efforts of the Department of Justice to reduce violence caused by ghost guns and other firearms and to promote public safety."
