Guns for sale at Caso’s Gun-A-Rama in Jersey City, New Jersey, which has been open since 1967. (Photo by Aristide Economopoulos/New Jersey Monitor)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s decision to restore 10 convicts’ ability to legally purchase firearms and explosives violated the law, according to a letter six high-ranking congressional Democrats released Friday.
The Justice Department publication of an interim final rule moving the authority to restore some convicts’ gun rights from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the attorney general also violated the separation of powers and a decades-old provision in the department’s annual funding bill, according to the 12-page letter.
The Democrats wrote that while Congress did delegate the authority to “oversee restoration of federal firearm privileges applications” to the ATF several decades ago, lawmakers have included language in nearly every government funding bill since 1993 barring the ATF from spending any money to process those applications.
The prohibition followed then-President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, trying to move the authority from the ATF to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Given the pervasiveness of gun violence in our nation, this Administration should not be circumventing Congress’ authority to prioritize restoring firearm privileges to individuals convicted of serious or violent crimes,” the Democrats wrote.
The letter was signed by House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.; Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash.; House Judiciary ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md.; Senate Judiciary ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee ranking member Grace Meng, D-N.Y.; and Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee ranking member Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from States Newsroom.
Mel Gibson case
The DOJ under President Donald Trump has so far restored 10 individuals’ ability to legally purchase firearms, including the actor Mel Gibson, who “pleaded no contest to a charge of domestic violence” in 2011, according to Reuters.
Federal law bars several types of people from legally buying firearms, including anyone sentenced to more than one year in prison, which typically coincides with felonies, and those who commit domestic violence.
The six Democrats wrote that the “intersection between firearms and domestic violence remains a key concern, demonstrating the need to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.
“Research has shown that the presence of firearms significantly increases the risk of death or serious injury for victims of domestic or dating violence. The Supreme Court has recognized that the danger of a domestic abuser with a gun serves as a limitation on the Second Amendment.”
The Democrats wrote that for decades Congress has prevented the ATF from restoring prohibited people’s ability to legally purchase firearms. The annual DOJ appropriations bill also bars moving the ability to approve those applications away from ATF to any other federal agency.
“The concerns that originally led to these provisions — recidivist crime, limited investigative resources, and difficulty in assessing applicants — remain unchanged,” they wrote. “Congress made an explicit policy choice to prioritize investigating crime, rather than to waste funds on evaluating whether to restore firearm rights to previously convicted felons.”
Study cited
The letter says a study from the Violence Policy Center that looked at restorations during the late 1980s is one of many reasons Congress prohibited the ATF from restoring some felons’ ability to legally purchase firearms.
The study, which reviewed 100 ATF case files obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, showed the federal government had restored the ability of “terrorists, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, gun traffickers, and child molesters” to legally purchase firearms and explosives.
“The FOIA-obtained records also showed that of those granted relief between 1985 and 1989, 47 individuals were later re-arrested for serious offenses such as attempted murder, first-degree sexual assault, kidnapping, child molestation, illegal possession of a machine gun, trafficking in cocaine, LSD, and PCP, and illegal firearms possession or carrying,” they wrote.
The letter ends with Democrats calling on the DOJ to withdraw the interim final rule and “vacate the wrongfully granted restoration of federal firearms privileges to the 10 individuals.”
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