After hearing about a school shooting the day before his Senate confirmation hearing, President Joe Biden’s nominee to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms said he embraced his children a bit tighter.
As Steven Dettelbach answered senators’ inquiries, the murders of 19 children and two instructors loomed huge.
‘I think yesterday night was a night where parents worldwide hugged their children just a little bit stronger,’ he said in his opening remarks.
‘I know I did, at the end of the day.’
‘My thoughts are very much with the community in Texas, that are suffering so deeply and with other communities, because this event can be a catalyst for other people who have gone through this to relive some of the great pain that they feel.’
He was speaking a day after Salvador Ramos opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
The 18-year-old gunman killed 21 people before being shot by police.
The tragedy shocked the nation and increased pressure on Congress and Biden to take action, even though Democrats know that Republican opposition will stymie legislation.
President Joe Biden immediately responded by signaling a fresh push on gun reform, while leading Republicans said it was too soon to turn to politics.
The two most senior figures on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Republican addressed the massacre at the start of the hearing.
‘Before we begin, I want to express my condolences to those affected by the shooting in Uvalde, Texas,’ said Sen. Chuck Grassley.
‘The killing of innocent children is sickening and heartbreaking.’
And committee chairman Dick Durban, an Illinois Democrat, said he planned to schedule hearings on gun violence after the Memorial Day recess.
He also described Dettelbach as ‘well qualified’ for a key post.
‘This is an agency which has the technical capacity to help us to solve gun crimes and to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them,’ he said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, opened the questioning of Dettelbach by asking how he would use his background as a prosecutor in the role of ATF director.
‘Senator, I spent the vast majority of my career as a prosecutor, over 20 years… and it is a core value of mine … Something that I have lived with and that I will continue … politics can play no role in law enforcement, none at all,’ he said.
‘I worked under Republican administrations and I worked under Democratic administrations as a federal prosecutor.’
He said the role of the ATF was simply to catch the ‘bad guys.’
‘I vow to never let politics in any way influence my action as ATF director,’ he said.
Key Republicans have already signaled their opposition to Dettelbach.
And his nomination follows the withdrawal last year of the nomination of David Chipman to head the ATF after his past positions on gun control worried some moderate Democrats as well as Republicans.
Dettelbach has also previously said he backed universal background checks and assault weapons during a run to be Ohio attorney general in 2018.
However, he does not need any Republican votes if he secures the backing of all 50 Democratic senators with Vice President Kamala Harris tie-breaking vote.
Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat, used his time to express outrage that the ATF has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2015 and urged Dettelbach to push Congress for more resources to tackle gun crime.
‘This is despicable,’ he said.
‘That the same people that tried to accuse us wrongfully of defunding the police have taken one of the most important law enforcement agencies to protect Americans, to protect our children, our churches, our mosques, our synagogues,our parks our supermarkets is not allowed to do their job.
‘And we yet again are sacrificing our children on the altar of inaction.’
Senator Alex Padilla took aim at some Republicans who have suggested the answer is to have more guns on school campuses.
‘In the last two weeks we have experienced at least 22 mass shootings across the country,’ he said.
‘No other developed country has to deal with this. But we do.
‘Now some folks suggest that arming teachers or providing more armed presence on school campuses will make them safer.
‘If more guns were the answer, the United States would be the safest nation in the world.’