ATF unlawfully took the property. It’s only fair they pay the costs of getting it back.
“[I]t is ORDERED and ADJUDGED that judgment is entered for the plaintiffs,” Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia instructed Dec. 30. “The Court DECLARES that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule titled Bump-Stock-Type Devices… was issued in excess of ATF’s statutory authority and is therefore unlawful.”
To paraphrase the hit song title from the last century, what a difference a judge and a president make. Friedrich, nominated to the court in 2017 by President Donald Trump, replaced Judge Reggie Walton, a 2001 George W. Bush nominee. In 2004, Walton rejected a challenge to the District’s gun ban and ruled the Second Amendment did not protect an individual right.
Now with Friedrich’s orders, a complaint filed five years ago by attorneys Stephen Stamboulieh and Alan Beck on behalf of plaintiffs Owen Monroe, Scott Heuman and this correspondent — with my property surrendered to me by ATF in August — comes almost to a close.
By David Codrea
