For 25 years, David Chipman was an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

Well, there were a lot of things that aren't like TV.

He investigated major events like the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma

City bombing, but a lot of his job revolved around smaller scale tragedies involving deadly

gun violence.

At the beginning of his career, you decided that this work was worthy of the full measure

of his devotion, even if it involved dangerous moments in the field.

And that becomes clear when you're sacrificing your life, right?

Like, at some point during a number of SWAT operations, like just a function with that

ever-present fear, you sort of had to calculate that you were okay with dying.

Chipman rose up the ranks as an ATF agent and eventually took charge of the Bureau's

entire firearms program.

But along the way, he became disillusioned.

He'd been willing to die in service of the mission he thought he'd been given to reduce

gun violence, but he started to wonder if other people, powerful people, actually wanted

this mission to succeed.

My frustration was with the government itself, and actually members of the government and

lobbies were trying to actively prevent me from solving crime.

But like by the end of my career, I was left with a fact like, I don't believe everyone

views gun violence as a problem, and in fact, some people see it as an opportunity.

After leaving ATF about a decade ago, Chipman became an advisor to gun control organizations.

He did that work until last year when President Biden asked him to come full circle and return

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