Trump’s DEA Pick Backed Stricter Gun Laws

For the second time in as many weeks, the President-elect has tapped an individual with a historical past of supporting gun-control measures to fill a senior federal legislation enforcement place.

Donald Trump introduced over the weekend his plans to appoint Chad Chronister (R.), the present Sheriff of Florida’s Hillsborough County, to steer the Drug Enforcement Company (DEA). As just lately as 2019, Chronister expressed assist for “enhanced psychological well being screening” for anybody who desires to personal a gun, common background checks, and Florida’s “purple flag” legislation.

“All of us as a society have to do extra about gun security and people who possess firearms,” Chronister mentioned after stopping a copycat mass capturing menace within the wake of 2019’s El Paso capturing, based on the Tampa Bay Occasions.

Whereas the DEA has little to do with crafting gun coverage, the choose represents a brand new development of introduced nominees to steer key legislation enforcement businesses who’ve run afoul of gun-right activists. That indicators different elements past gun coverage are driving lots of Trump’s cupboard appointments.

Trump introduced former Florida Legal professional Common Pam Bondi (R.) as his newest choose for US Legal professional Common late final month after his preliminary alternative, former Florida Home member Matt Gaetz (R.), withdrew himself from consideration after it grew to become clear he couldn’t safe Senate affirmation because of a collection of scandals. Bondi’s tenure as Florida’s high legislation enforcement official was marked partially by her workplace’s position in crafting and publicly supporting a package deal of gun-control legal guidelines the state adopted shortly after the 2018 Parkland capturing.

“In a time of disaster, it’s about discovering frequent floor, and that’s what Governor Scott’s completed,” she mentioned in a Fox interview of a legislative package deal that included a bump-stock ban, purple flag legislation, and a measure elevating the minimal age to buy a rifle or shotgun to 21. “That’s why nothing ever will get completed in Congress, in my view. Individuals are so polarized to at least one facet or the opposite. We simply skilled a traumatic faculty capturing in Florida, and it’s discovering frequent floor, one thing each side can agree on.”

In fact, Trump himself voiced assist for seizing weapons from these suspected of being a hazard to themselves or others across the time Bondi’s workplace was engaged on Florida’s model of the coverage. In a post-Parkland White Home assembly with lawmakers on faculty security, the President-elect expressed his want for a coverage of confiscating weapons from people deemed to be harmful, even when it violates their due course of rights.

“I like taking the weapons early, like on this loopy man’s case that simply befell in Florida … to go to court docket would have taken a very long time,” Trump mentioned on the time. “Take the weapons first, undergo due course of second.”

Whereas Chronister’s previous assist for stricter gun legal guidelines has not but prompted a response from outstanding gun-rights teams, Bondi’s nomination did.

“Pam Bondi has a combined document on gun rights,” Gun House owners of America (GOA) posted on social media. “As Legal professional Common she helped move plenty of gun management that GOA opposed. Gun House owners deserve an lawyer basic who will battle for the Second Modification and in opposition to infringements!”

The Firearms Coverage Coalition took that criticism a step additional. In response to Bondi’s tweet saying her assembly with Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), the group mentioned, “Allow us to guess: You mentioned doing Fudd shit like pushing purple flag legal guidelines, 18-20 gun bans, and different issues we’ll kick your ass in court docket for?”

Nonetheless, not all of Trump’s current legislation enforcement management picks match the gun-control sample. The identical day he introduced Chronister, he additionally revealed his intention to fireplace the present FBI Director Christopher Wray (who he beforehand appointed) and change him with Kash Patel. Patel has drawn criticisms for feedback the place he expressed a want to wipe out FBI management and use the bureau’s energy to analyze and prosecute Trump’s opponents, however the former prosecutor doesn’t seem to have a historical past of public statements calling for stricter gun legal guidelines.

Patel has even drawn assist from GOA. He spoke on the group’s Gun House owners Advocacy and Management Summit in August. Although he didn’t discuss at size about particular gun coverage positions in his remarks, he did criticize present ATF Director Steve Dettelbach for being “all for a bump inventory ban.” He argued, regardless of Trump being the one who instituted the bump inventory ban earlier than it was struck down as illegal by the Supreme Courtroom, that the ATF Director’s assist for the ban confirmed he was one of many “authorities gangsters” Patel has railed in opposition to for years.

“They’re going to empower the businesses in authorities–the DEAs of the world, the ATFs of the world; the director of the ATF principally got here out the opposite day and mentioned he’s all for a bump inventory ban. It is a political appointee in Washington, DC, who is meant to be in command of our–our–Constitutional proper. This man desires to take it away,” Patel mentioned of Dettelbach. “They are going to put in a zillion {dollars} behind this equipment to wipe out our rights beneath the Second Modification.”

These views might conflict with Chronister’s personal, given he argued the “proper’s gone means too far proper for me” throughout the identical 2019 press convention the place he backed stricter gun legal guidelines.

UPDATE 12-3-2025 6:40 PM EASTERN: Chronister has withdrawn himself from consideration for director of the DEA.

“Over the previous a number of days, because the gravity of this essential duty set in, I’ve concluded that I have to respectfully withdraw from consideration,” he mentioned in a social media put up on Tuesday.