ATF Sued for Records of Obama Staff’s Attempt to Restrict AR-15 Ammunition
While the nation appeared galvanized with the fierce battle between Democrats and Republicans over the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh as the newest U.S, Supreme Court Associate Justice, a non-partisan, non-profit watchdog announced during the same week that its team legal-eagles 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 ammunition for the AR-15 categorized as body-armor-piercing ammo.
The well-known group and Beltway gadfly, Judicial Watch, filed a federal lawsuit after the ATF and the Justice Department failed to respond to a May 14, 2018, FOIA request for the documents describing the Obama s AR-15 ammo ban efforts.
While the former U.S. president continues his American tour as part of helping Democratic Party lawmakers “fire up” their radical-left base, Obama appears more concerned with the preservation of his treasured presidential legacy, which is more shallow than many suspected. Even his “pride and joy” Iranian nuclear deal has been gutted and his Obamacare health plan is slowly floundering under its own weight. Also, in a separate matter, Fox News Channel’s chief national security and intelligence correspondent, Catherine Herridge — arguably the best in her field — and the Conservative Base editor reported that Obama had a propensity for having classified intelligence reports from the numerous agencies and bureaus “doctored” so that they reflected successful operations and the achievement of victories. It was shocking to read and hear that a POTUS would create false narratives and claim that non-political intelligence chiefs and executives never edited intelligence reports or “talking points. Upwards of 50 intelligence officers with the Defense Intelligence Service (DIA) marched into the DIA’s Inspector General’s office to complain about Obama’s obvious dishonesty.
But today there are a number of GOP lawmakers and organizations, including those representing police and intelligence officers, who want a real probe of the unilateral actions taken by Obama to hinder American citizens from exercising their Second Amendment right to possess any sort of handgun or rifle and the accompanying ammunition available for use by these weapons.
The documents sought by Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton include ATF or DOJ (Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch) talking points about the “Armor Piercing Ammunition Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” and other records regarding Obama’s ammunition classification.
This lawsuit is the latest development in Judicial Watch’s 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 “serious concern” 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 “sporting purposes.”
The ATF’s move “does 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,” 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).
“Simply put, the ATF refuses to comply with federal open records law,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The ATF has withheld records for over three years concerning the Obama administration’s shady attempt to institute gun control by restricting ammunition instead of guns.”
James Kouri, when I was still in school, in the 1950’s, we were taught that the president (and vice president) had to be a “natural born citizen”, someone born on U.S. soil to parents (plural) who were themselves, citizens, owing allegiance to no other nation, and no other nation that could demand loyalty from him/her, especially since the president is also commander-in-chief of our military.
Obama could have been born in the White House and still wouldn’t be a natural born citizen, simply because his Kenyan, British subject father was not a citizen. Only if his father were someone else who WAS a citizen, would Obama have been constitutionally eligible to be POTUS. If his father were someone else, that would open a whole new can of worms, since he is the one who submitted the BC saying Obama, Sr. was his father. He is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people. The natural born citizen clause has never been changed, it remains the same as it was when the Framers wrote the Constitution. Everything Obama did could be wiped out, by outing this fraud. He almost destroyed this nation. It has nothing to do with his color…even Pres. Trump’s children, four out of the five, are not “natural born citizens”, because Ivana and Melania were not yet citizens when their children were born. BOTH parents must be citizens and the child born on U.S. soil! Those are the only two offices that require one to be a natural born citizen. Lawsuits at the time were going after place of birth, but O’s father not being a citizen was enough to disqualify him, by itself.
Since Obama has gotten away with it (so far), others have tried to ride his coattails. Ted Cruz was born in Canada and his Cuban father was not a citizen until 2005. Ted was born with dual U.S./Canadian citizenship and didn’t renounce the Canadian part until May 2014. It is what you are born with that counts. Children born abroad to even two citizen parents are “naturalized by congressional statute” citizens. Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal also ran for the Republican nomination, but they too, are not natural born citizens. They are citizens only because of the 14th Amendment and not eligible. They were born in the U.S. but their parents were not citizens. Others have been mentioned as possible future candidates, like Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris, but although both were born in the U.S., their parents were not yet citizens, when their children were born. We must abide by the Constitution and not allow candidates of any party to ignore the natural born citizen clause! Birth on U.S soil (jus soli) + citizen father + citizen mother (jus sanguinis) = natural born citizen! One may be a citizen through birth or parentage, but only someone with both is a natural born citizen and eligible to be president or vice president. Nature’s law not man-made law.