U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “ATF in turmoil as top black director demoted, Biden pushes second white man for top job,” Washington Secrets documents. “Reports said that acting Director Marvin Richardson, the highest-ranking black man at the agency who had 30 years of experience with ATF, announced Monday that he was being shoved aside by the White House. Biden last week chose a white lawyer to head the sprawling law enforcement agency after his first pick, another white male, bowed out under pressure.”
Stephen Gutowski of The Reload broke the story, noting even Bureau insiders were taken by surprise:
“‘The news that he was being replaced came as a shock to most of us within the agency,’ one ATF official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Reload.”
“The move follows a recent New York Times article featuring complaints from gun-control activists which labeled Richardson ‘an industry-friendly subordinate pumping the brakes’ on President Biden’s aggressive gun-control initiatives,” Gutowski notes.
That article is paywalled, but Tickle the Wire gives a glimpse of the elite special interest power brought to bear to demand sweeping Richardson aside:
“‘A.T.F. needs a top-to-bottom overhaul,’ John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group funded by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, told the Times. ‘That starts with the administration making sure the agency has the resources and leadership it needs to regulate an industry that has consistently prioritized profits over public safety.’”
In other words, because Richardson didn’t move fast enough to impose demanded infringements, he’s gotta go. Feinblatt couches that in terms of inadequate “leadership.”
In other words, Feinblatt just called Richardson incompetent.
What is it about Michael Bloomberg and those he bankrolls insisting that minorities can’t handle full enfranchisement? How else would you characterize someone who wants special rules to apply for their right to keep and bear arms?
And how is that not the very definition of racism?
What’s surprising in all this is how the white “progressive” left gives outrages like these a pass. It’s curious, how their exploitation of phrases like “systemic racism” and accusations of “white supremacy” hurled at political opponents are really just agenda-advancing smears intended to agitate low information followers. In truth, the most profound effect of so many of the “commonsense gun safety laws” they demand, like repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to gun manufacturers, will most impact the ability of the less affluent to afford firearms.
The keyword in “economic discrimination” is “discrimination”, from T. Markus Funk’s essay, “Gun Control and Economic Discrimination: Melting-Point Case-in-Point”:
“Keeping arms away from blacks had always been an issue; in fact, the first ever mention of blacks in Virginia’s laws was a 1644 provision barring free blacks from owning firearms….
A National Institute of Justice Study found that: The people most likely to be deterred from acquiring a handgun by exceptionally high prices or by the nonavailability of certain kinds of handguns are … poor people who have decided they need a gun to protect themselves against the felons but who find that the cheapest gun in the market costs more than they can afford to pay.”
You’d think with all their talk about “equity,” more angrily outspoken members of the Congressional Black Caucus, representatives like Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lee, would be demanding full firearms enfranchisement for their constituents. Ditto for Black Lives Matter.
Instead, crickets.
That they haven’t, that they ignore the lessons of history (including from within their own lifetimes as exemplified by civil rights icons like Robert Hicks and the Deacons for Defense and Justice — and talk about black history that ought to be taught in schools!), shows their priorities are very different from what they say they are. But while it may be unrealistic to expect them to suddenly climb aboard the Second Amendment bandwagon (they are commies, after all), it may be possible to get them to protest the Biden administration’s humiliating dissing of Marvin Richardson to favor pudgy white “yes man” Steve Diddleber…de… Dettelbach.
As observed in that article, it’s not looking good for Republicans to be able to muster enough opposition to prevent his confirmation. Maybe not on their own. So why don’t we gun owners publicly ask the CBC and BLM why they’re standing down for this shabby treatment of one of their own, and dare them to do something about it? After all, Obama appointed B. Todd Jones – what’s the problem with “If you don’t vote for me you ain’t black” Biden?
And no, of course naming Richardson instead of Dumbledore won’t buy anything for gun owners outside of another very public Biden stumble. I’m trying to offer a path to stretch things past the midterms here, when, if things go as everyone is hoping (assuming Republicans don’t blow it), we’ll be able to call in some markers.
In the meantime, if he wants to start a GoFundMe page to file a job discrimination lawsuit, I’m in for 10 bucks. The stories about institutional discrimination I bet that man could tell…
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
