Judicial Watch Sues ATF for Records About Obama Administration Attempt to Restrict AR-15 Ammunition
(Washington, DC) â Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), a component of the Department of Justice, for 1,900 pages of records about a proposed reclassification that would effectively ban certain types of AR-15 ammunition as armor-piercing (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02218)).
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the agency failed to respond to a May 14, 2018, FOIA request for the 1,900 documents about the Obama administrationâs AR-15 ammo ban efforts. The documents include ATF talking points about the âArmor Piercing Ammunition Notice of Proposed Rulemakingâ and other records discussing ammunition classification.
The lawsuit is the latest development in Judicial Watchâs more than three-year effort to obtain documents from the ATF. Judicial Watch discovered the document cache in separate litigation on the ammo ban issue.
In March 2015, more than 200 members of Congress wrote to former ATF Director B. Todd Jones to express their âserious concernâ that the proposal to reclassify the ammunition types as armor-piercing may violate the Second Amendment by restricting ammunition that had been primarily used for âsporting purposes.â The ATFâs move âdoes not comport with the letter or spirit of the law and will interfere with Second Amendment rights by disrupting the market for ammunition that law abiding Americans use for sporting and other legitimate purposes,â the letter said. The ATF subsequently halted its efforts.
The precise statutory definition of armor-piercing ammunition can be found in 18 U.S.C. §921(a)(17).
âSimply put, the ATF refuses to comply with federal open records law,â Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. âThe ATF has withheld records for over three years concerning the Obama administrationâs shady attempt to institute gun control by restricting ammunition instead of guns.â
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