A hearing to fill the long-vacant director’s chair for the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms was dominated Wednesday by comments from Senate Judiciary Committee members about the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school Tuesday.

“This is the agency which has the technical capacity to handle gun crimes and keep them out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them,” said Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, before the hearing opened for members to question Steven Dettelbach, President Joe Biden’s nominee for ATF chair.