Steve Dettelbach, President Biden’s candidate to oversee the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, said Wednesday that he doesn’t have a definition for the phrase “assault weapon,” after calling for a ban when he ran for Ohio attorney general in 2018.

Dettelbach was grilled by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, for supporting an assault weapons ban during his campaign despite not understanding what it meant.

“When I ran for governor, I spoke out against assault weapons limits. The term was not defined by me. I haven’t even attempted to define the phrase “Dettelbach admitted it.

“So you’re running for office and you’ve called for an assault weapons ban, but you don’t know what an assault weapon is?” Cotton inquired.

Dettelbach noted that politicians are in charge of selecting whether guns qualify as “assault weapons.” He acknowledged that defining what assault weapons are “would be a challenging challenge,” because making it too narrow in scope would not “provide the safeguards that are intended,” while making it too wide “infringes unduly on people’s rights.”

Cotton claimed that “assault firearms” is a word coined by “Washington politicians and attorneys.” He pointed out that whereas guns are classified as pistols, rifles, and shotguns, and each has distinct features, assault weapons do not.

“I believe it’s revealing that you’ve been chosen to oversee the ATF but don’t have an assault weapon definition. And the issue is that there is no such thing as an assault weapon category of weaponry “explained the senator.

Cotton recalled that a 1994 prohibition by Congress defined assault weapons, but Dettelbach stated that he is “not especially familiar” with it.