House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-OH) has issued congressional subpoenas to White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention Director Stefanie Feldman and ATF Director Steve Dettelbach seeking information about any role the office and agency had in Chicago’s lawsuit against gunmaker Glock.
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Comer initially requested Dettelbach and Feldman provide the committee with any pertinent communication between the White House/ATF and Glock back in June, but according to the congressman the Biden administration hasn’t turned over a single document. In fact, in his letter informing Feldman of the subpoena, Comer says Deputy Counsel to the President Rachel F. Cotton responded to the Oversight Committee in early July with a letter that “did not even reference the Committee’s request for documents.” Instead, Comer says Cotton “impugned the motives of the Committee,” stating “[t]he House Majority . . . [is] doing the gun lobby’s bidding by launching a baseless political attack on the Biden Administration under the guise of an ‘investigation.’”
If that were the case, it would be easy enough for the White House and ATF to disprove the claims of collusion by whistleblowers. So why is the White House stonewalling the inquiry into communications between the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, ATF, and Glock officials? As Comer reminded Dettelbach in his subpoena request:
The Committee has learned that on December 20, 2023, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention met privately with representatives from Glock, during which the Administration requested that Glock change their pistol designs so that it would be harder to illegally modify Glock pistols to shoot continuously with a single trigger pull. On March 19, 2024, the City of Chicago filed suit in state court against Glock. Everytown Law, the litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, is listed as counsel for the plaintiff. The day the suit was filed, John Feinblatt, President of Everytown for Gun Safety, posted on his X account “Today Everytown Law + the City of Chicago announced a historic lawsuit against Glock Inc. to hold them accountable for the unconscionable decision to continue selling its easily modified pistols even though it could fix the problem.”
Later in the post, Mr. Feinblatt said “[f]ederal Officials recently contacted Glock to discuss implementing new ways to modify Glock pistols to make it harder for Glock switches to be installed. Rather than help, Glock falsely insisted there is nothing they can do.” Because the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s meeting with Glock was private, Mr. Feinblatt appears to have had insider information regarding your office’s meeting with Glock, which raises questions about whether your office colluded with Everytown for Gun Safety to initiate their lawsuit against Glock.
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Chicago is seeking a court-ordered ban on the sale of Glock pistols to city residents “and Illinois gun stores that servethe Chicago market”, while Joe Biden recently used an executive order to set up an Emerging Firearms Threats Task Force that’s supposed to issue a report and an interagency plan to deal with machine gun conversion devices, which are already illegal under federal law.
Retired ATF Deputy Assistant Director Pete Forcelli previously told Bearing Arms that the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention had pushed Dettelbach to have the ATF reclassify Glocks as machine guns under the NFA, but Dettelbach has so far resisted the move. Chicago’s lawsuit, along with the task force established by Biden, seem designed to give the ATF another push towards reclassifying some of the most popular handguns on the market as machine guns after the November elections have taken place.
My guess is that the White House and ATF will stonewall Comer’s subpoena just as they ignored his initial request for information. But if Kamala Harris wins election next month, don’t be surprised if the candidate who says she’s not taking anyone’s guns away suddenly decides that its time to make the sale of Glocks (and perhaps all other striker-fired pistols as well) off-limits to the civilian market; essentially imposing a ban on the sale of commonly-owned semi-automatic handguns through ATF regulation.
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