National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell told teams representatives at the annual league meeting in Phoenix this week that former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives director B. Todd Jones will soon be suiting up for the NFL.
Jones, who announced his plans to leave last week on the heels of a grocery list of scandals that affected the law enforcement agency, will be a special counsel for the football league.
The former head of the Department of Justice agency charged with enforcing the nation’s gun laws will be in charge of making initial disciplinary rulings for the NFL as reported by the Washington Post.
Jones, a former U.S. attorney, assumed the position of acting director of the ATF in 2011 following the resignation of Kenneth E. Melson in the aftermath of the Fast and Furious scandal. He was confirmed as director in 2013 after a close 53 to 42 Senate vote.
Since the post was established in 1970, the agency has seen a full dozen directors and acting directors. While long serving early holders of the post such as Rex D. Davidson and Stephen Higgins maintained their position for eight and eleven years respectively, since 2004 the assignment has been a revolving door with no less than seven directors in the past decade — of which Jones had been the longest serving.
Gun rights advocates weighed in on the NFL’s newest acquisition.
“I guess now in the NFL we will see a lot less passing and a lot more gun running,” Alan Gottlieb, the Chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) and the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation told Guns.com Thursday.
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