The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is the federal agency whose jurisdiction encompasses federal firearms laws. Its duties include enforcing the many criminal statutes in the U.S. Code pertaining to firearms, as well as licensing the businesses engaged in firearms commerce and regulating this network of federal firearm licensees (FFLs). The ATF also makes technical rulings that determine the conditions under which various firearms and related products are sold. Pro-gun America views ATF with, at best, wariness and suspicion. But reforms under the Trump administration have led ATF in a less antagonistic direction, which, it seems, proved too much for one ATF executive who reportedly left the agency to pursue her true passion of firearm prohibition.
The news come by way of an article by investigative journalist Lee Williams entitled, “Former ATF senior official now working for Everytown.” Williams cites a different former ATF official who reported that Marianna Mitchem, formerly ATF’s Associate Assistant Director of Field Operations (Industry Operations), is now working for Everytown for Gun Safety. This is the umbrella organization for billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun empire, which lobbies for bans on some of the most popular firearms in the U.S., including the iconic AR-15.
The source, who declined to be named, added that Mitchem in her new role is targeting Glock and Glock-type handguns, including by “reaching out to her former colleagues,” apparently hoping to convince them to adopt the view the guns require further regulation. Litigation and legislation in anti-gun jurisdictions – including Chicago, Minnesota, New Jersey, and California – fault Glock-type handguns over the supposed ease with which they can be converted to fire automatically. Of course, altering a Glock in this manner is already illegal under federal law, as is merely possessing the parts to do so.
Yet in the clouded thinking of gun control advocates, the real culprits are not the criminals who illegally modify the guns but the gunmakers who don’t manufacture their guns to be impervious to illegal modification. Under this “logic,” however, virtually any long gun whose barrel or stock could be cut down with a hacksaw to create a “short-barreled” rifle or shotgun would be similarly problematic.
A Linkedin page associated with a Marianna Mitchem formerly employed by ATF describes a career on the Industry Operations side of the agency. These are the “bean counters” who are not sworn agents, do not carry guns, and do not generally interact with violent criminals. Their job is to administer the ponderous bureaucracy that attends commercial firearms activity in the U.S.
ATF Industry Operations was infamously weaponized under the Biden-Harris administration, with policies such as “zero tolerance” inspections of FFLs and the adoption of administrative rules that targeted self-made firearms, private sellers, and braced pistols.
The latter two rules were invalidated by courts and have essentially been abandoned by the current administration. The former rule was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a bizarre opinion that introduced the concept of an “artifact noun” to American law and that claimed a single valid application of the rule saved it from being considered beyond the statute’s scope.
The source in the Williams article characterized Mitchem as “very anti-gun” and said her career took off with Joe Biden’s appointment of Steven Dettelbach as ATF director. Dettelbach, who during his confirmation proceedings admitted he had never owned a gun, was a willing accomplice in Biden’s anti-gun agenda. Mitchem, meanwhile, was Dettelbach’s own “puppet” for ATF’s role in this effort, according to the source, particularly when it came to self-made firearms.
While the article does not explain the circumstances under which Mitchem left her career at ATF, it is hardly surprising that an Industry Operations official whose career flourished during the prior administration would now feel more at home with Everytown than ATF. The Trump ATF has disavowed the agency’s priorities under Biden-Harris, pledging “a new era of reform” focused on “rebuilding trust with federal firearms licensees (FFLs), gun owners, and the public by prioritizing public safety and collaboration.” Meanwhile, Everytown’s ongoing demonization of the firearm industry’s members and products seems like a perfect fit for an ATF official who was consumed with targeting commercial actors, rather than pursuing violent criminals.
Mitchem would hardly be the first ATF employee to find greener pastures with the anti-gun movement. Everytown also formerly employed retired ATF agent David Chipman, who Biden would later nominate as ATF director. That nomination ended in embarrassment for all concerned, but Chipman continued to advocate for anti-gun causes in the private sector.
As this article was being published, neither Everytown nor Mitchem had publicly confirmed their new relationship.
If the reports are true, however, Americans can at least take comfort in knowing it’s now Bloomberg’s largesse, and not their own tax dollars, funding Marianna Mitchem’s anti-gun ambitions.
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