By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
The ATF wants former gun dealers to know that if their Federal Firearm License was suspended, revoked or denied they are now “invited to reapply.”
The ATF claims that every new FFL application will now be judged by an “Administrative Action Policy,” whatever that means.
The ATF did not respond to questions about the new program, which is typical. They would not say how many former gun dealers have applied to have their FFLs reinstated, or how many former FFLs have actually been reinstated.
Krissy Y. Carlson, ATF’s senior industry advisor/liaison, wrote in an email that she was “forwarding your questions to our public affairs division.” Then, an unsigned email from ATF’s public affairs division demanded an official FOIA request containing the questions, which was sent Wednesday. However, the ATF has still not responded to two previous FOIA requests, which were each sent more than three years ago.
It is clear that the ATF would rather issue broad public statements about its internal policy changes than answer a few specific questions, despite its new promise of “fairness and transparency.”
“ATF is committed to fairness and transparency in its regulatory enforcement program and to protecting Americans’ Second Amendment rights while also protecting public safety,” the agency now boasts on its website.
None of ATF’s recent changes were based on any internal decisions, but were instead the result of President Donald J. Trump, who issued an executive order February 7, titled “Protecting Second Amendment Rights.”
The FFL rule was not the only new item announced on ATF’s new page.
ATF also claims its Zero Tolerance Policy has been reviewed and replaced “with a new administrative action policy,” whatever that means.
“The new policy provides a fair framework for addressing violations uncovered by a compliance inspection, particularly when those violations do not impact public safety,” the ATF claims.
This “fair framework” was certainly never part of Joe Biden’s insane Zero Tolerance Policy, which raised the bar to impossible heights by punishing human error. Simple paperwork mistakes that would have barely merited a mention before Biden took office triggered hundreds of FFL revocations.
Before Biden, the ATF revoked an average of 40 FFLs per year. But in just the first year that Biden occupied the White House, the ATF revoked 273 FFLs, and many more dealers ended up losing their licenses and livelihoods.
For gun dealers, Biden’s Zero Tolerance Policy was likened to the death penalty for a minor traffic offense. Most will celebrate that it’s gone, at least for the next several years.
ATF’s real victims
The ATF should do nothing—take no official action—until they repair the lives that they destroyed carrying out Biden’s illegal orders. There are far too many real victims that we know about, and probably hundreds more who never reached out for help.
Quite frankly, no one really cares how former gun dealers can get relicensed until the ATF is held accountable for the atrocities it committed for years under the Biden administration, and the lives they ruined are made whole.
Here are some examples:
Russell Fincher, who is from the small town of Tuskahoma, Oklahoma, needed three jobs just to make ends meet. He taught high school history, served as a Baptist minister and sold guns and ammunition out of a small shed in the backyard. For reasons that are still not known, Fincher somehow came to the attention of the ATF.
A story published last year chronicled how 15 heavily armed ATF agents raided Fincher’s home, handcuffed him on his deck and then yelled, screamed and threatened the 52-year-old man—in front of this 13-year-old son—until he “voluntarily” surrendered his FFL. The ATF agents seized dozens of Fincher’s personal firearms, which he estimated were worth more than $50,000.
Fincher’s Federal Public Defender negotiated a plea agreement, in which Fincher pled guilty to selling ammunition to a prohibited person, which is punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors dismissed the two remaining charges once Fincher signed the plea agreement.
The deal kept Fincher out of prison. Both sides agreed that three years of probation would be “the appropriate disposition of the case.” The plea agreement also specified that Fincher would not contest the forfeiture of 39 personal firearms.
His crime? Ficher was accused of selling a box of ammunition to a convicted felon, even though no licensed gun dealers in Oklahoma run background checks for ammunition purchases.
Mark “Choppa” Manley is a gun owner, a gun collector and a Second Amendment advocate who had more than 70 legally owned firearms stored in a gun safe at his Baltimore home. All of his firearms complied with both federal law and the laws of Maryland. He was always very careful about that, but that didn’t matter to ATF agents who raided his Baltimore home last year.
ATF agents busted down several doors to his home and threw two stun grenades—including one at his juvenile son.
More than a dozen ATF agents ransacked Manley’s home.
“They threatened to blow up my gun safe,” Manley said at the time. “I don’t have anything to hide, so I told them I’d open the safe. They uncuffed me and told me ‘Don’t try to run.’ Where was I gonna run to? My family was right there.”
Manley unlocked his gun safe and slowly swung open the door.
“They were all standing around waiting and hoping,” he said “This was their moment, they thought. They started pulling out rifles and shotguns, but everything was registered and Maryland-compliant. ‘We got nothing here,’ one of them said.”
Manely and his 17-year-old daughter were each handcuffed. His wife and children were moved to the rear of a SWAT van. It was 20-degrees outside, and they were only wearing pajamas.
“I would like you to take the handcuffs off my daughter,” Manley’s wife told the ATF agents. “Why did you handcuff my husband? He complied with everything you asked for.”
ATF agents left after they found nothing illegal. The Manley family was never told, at least officially, why they were mistakenly targeted by the ATF.
David Schieferle, who spent 20 years as a U.S. Air Marshal, served eight months behind bars in the Miami Federal Detention Center—which he described as a “hellhole”—10 months on home confinement wearing an electronic ankle monitor, and is currently on probation for the next two-and-a-half years. Yet, he’s still willing to risk even more time behind bars through a new trial by claiming his first attorney was incompetent and that he never broke any law.
“The ATF is really screwing over law abiding Americans. The ATF screwed me over,” he told the Second Amendment. “What HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) and the ATF did to me was wrong. Every ATF person involved in my case seemed evil.”
Schieferle’s life-altering saga began when he was called into the Federal Air Marshal’s office on his day off to be interrogated. Little did he know that the ATF and other federal agencies had dozens of agents positioned in cars, ATVs and even a helicopter, who were awaiting a “go” order to invade his five-acre organic farmstead and home.
Said Schieferle: “If I had to venture my best guess at what happened during my trial, the ATF reluctantly admitted the tubes were legal. The problem was the DOJ was allowed to convince a clueless jury that I intended to use or convert the tubes into illegal silencers. The DOJ won this trial by using innocent gun data on my hard drives and by not allowing me to present to the jury any evidence nor my expert witness to give his full testimony. I never did anything illegal, and I never took one step or thought to convert anything into a silencer.”
Patrick “Tate” Adamiak committed no crime, so why is he serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in New Jersey? Because the ATF screwed up and would rather charge an innocent man and force him to serve two decades behind bars than admit the truth—that their special agents don’t have a clue about what they’re doing.
Adamiak, who is now 31, was just a 28-year-old E-6 in the U.S. Navy prior to his arrest. He enjoyed firearms and ran a website that sold gun parts—not guns. He was always extremely careful about what he sold. After all, he had to protect his naval career, which was doing extremely well. Adamiak had already been accepted into Naval Special Warfare, so exciting things were soon headed his way.
But after their informant lied and dozens of heavily armed ATF agents kicked open Adamiak’s door during a search warrant, nothing illegal was found. As a result, the ATF was forced to call in their ringer, Firearms Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell.
Once the ATF turned the case over to Bodell, Adamiak’s innocence no longer mattered. Bodell would break the rules. Under oath, he actually turned toys into firearms, legal RPGs into destructive devices and 100% legal semi-autos into machineguns.
All of what Bodell insisted were illegal items are still sold legally online: Inert RPGs, toy STENs, submachinegun receivers and especially open-bolt semi-autos. The RPGs, toy STENs and submachinegun receivers don’t require any paperwork to purchase.
Despite Bodell’s and the ATF’s untruths, an anti-gun judge crippled Adamiak’s defense. One of his defense experts, an actual former ATF official, wasn’t even allowed to testify much.
As a result, Adamiak was found guilty and sentenced to 20-years in prison, despite the fact that everything he possessed is still completely legal and that he had never committed any crime.
Bryan Malinowski had never been charged with any crime. When the ATF raided Malinowski’s West Little Rock home last year they were spoiling for a gunfight, and they got one. As a result, a good man is dead—the latest victim of ATF’s overly aggressive tactics and complete disregard for the sanctity of human life.
ATF never commented officially about the killing, other than to claim Malinowski fired first. But Malinowski’s family released a statement, which confirms what everyone already knew: It is extremely unlikely that the 53-year-old airport executive knew he was trading gunfire with federal agents. It is far more likely Malinowski believed he was defending himself and his wife from armed home invaders.
His widow, Maria “Maer” Malinowski, recently filed a lawsuit, which accused the ATF and 10 agents and task force officers of violating hers and her husband’s constitutional rights.
“The Constitution requires reasonableness and, specifically here, that defendants both knock and announce their presence and purpose and wait a reasonable time before entry,” the lawsuit states. “The ATF failed to do so, resulting in an entirely predictable, needless and tragic outcome.”
Takeaways
The ATF has never learned from its mistakes. Neither Ruby Ridge, Waco nor any of these bad searches and arrests taught them anything. Therefore, the ATF will continue making bad arrests and using excessive force, and more Americans will be injured and killed. That much is certain. In fact, it’s guaranteed.
President Donald J. Trump can fix this very easily. All he needs to do is decide whether he wants the type of scrutiny that an unchecked ATF will bring to his administration.
President Trump needs to understand that unless the ATF and its leadership are finally held accountable, only one question still remains: Who will the ATF shoot next?
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project wouldn’t be possible without you. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support pro-gun stories like this.
