President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the nation’s top gun regulator largely dodged questions on his own views about gun control Wednesday at a confirmation hearing dominated by the previous day’s mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
Steven Dettelbach, the former prosecutor picked to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he hugged his children “a little bit harder” after the shooting. Authorities said 19 children and two adults died in the attack.
The hearing became about much more than Dettelbach’s qualifications. Democrats used it to call for action on long-languishing gun control proposals such as expanded background checks, a federal assault weapon ban and so-called red flag laws that permit courts to intervene with those deemed dangerous to head off potential mass murders.
