Pro-2A Legal Expert Joins ATF as Chief Counsel

FBI Director Kash Patel’s appointment as Interim ATF Director isn’t the only shake-up happening at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

It appears that just a few weeks after U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi fired the ATF’s Chief Counsel Pamela Hicks, the Bureau has a new one lined up.

Robert Leider, a pro-2A law professor, now appears on the ATF’s Leadership Directory page sitting in the position Hicks once occupied.

Leider is an associate professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, and has self-described his interests as those that include “the right of self-defense, gun control, and the Second Amendment.”

He’s weighed into the Constitutional rights of gun owners a few times, authoring extensive papers on the individual’s rights to bear arms and self-defense.

Initial reactions to the news seem to be positive. Legal scholar Randy Barnett shared the news on social media, calling Leider’s position “huge.”

“Huge! Rob was a Visiting Scholar of the @GUConstitution Center doing important work on the militia. His recent paper on the individual right to arms for common defense is important.”

Gun Owners of America also tweeted out the announcement of Leider’s appointment alongside his official ATF photograph.

It’s worth mentioning that Leider wrote an article a few months ago in which he argued that gun rights activists might be better off with a revamped ATF in lieu of shutting the whole operation down.

“At the top of some advocates’ wish lists is finding an ATF director who will shut down or otherwise cripple ATF. Even in the unlikely event they were successful, shutting down ATF could backfire spectacularly without substantial, and likely unobtainable, federal firearms law reforms,” he wrote in The Reload.

“Instead of trying to eliminate ATF, gun advocates would fare better working through ATF to implement their preferred regulatory reforms.

Is this a tip-off as to what gun owners can expect to see out of the ATF in the coming months? Time will tell.

Do you think the Leider hiring is a good one? Let us know why or why not in the comments below. For more on what’s going on in the gun world, check out our News page.