The Pam Bondi Justice Department continues its anti-Second Amendment engagements, this time instructing a court to deny universal relief to all gun owners and, for perhaps the first time ever, asking a court to force a plaintiff to hand over its private membership list.
The complaint in Reese v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, originated in 2020 when gun rights groups and individual plaintiffs challenged Louisiana’s prohibition on handgun purchases for adults under 21. In January of this year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned a previous District Court ruling and sent the case back down for review, as we reported.
In that process, the ATF, under the Department of Justice, issued a 16-page brief to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in anticipation of the revised ruling, and as requested by the court. In this brief, the ATF/DOJ made two main arguments attempting to sway the court’s decision:
- No universal relief should be entered.
- The court’s judgment should be limited to the three individual plaintiffs and to any identified and verified member of the organizational plaintiffs who was a member when the suit was filed.
In essence, the ATF was trying to keep the judgment – and the relief it provided – as narrow as possible and prevent it from being applied to gun owners broadly declaring, “…to the extent that Plaintiffs might request this Court to enter declaratory or injunctive relief universal in scope, such a request would be inappropriate.”
This posture is blatantly hostile to gun owners, but not nearly as egregious as the ATF’s next request, which is to turn over membership lists of the gun rights groups listed on the complaint (which include Firearms Policy Coalition Inc., Second Amendment Foundation, and Louisiana Shooting Association):
In accordance with the specificity requirements of Rule 65(d), Defendants’ proposed judgment limits its scope to members of the organizational plaintiffs who have been identified and verified to Defendants during this case. Defendants cannot comply with a judgment if they do not know to whom the judgment applies.
Surprisingly, the District Court complied with the request, which amounts to creating a limited type of gun registry (which is illegal), instructing in its two-page order on October 7 that:
Within twenty-one (21) days of issuance of this Judgment, those Plaintiffs identified at paragraph 2(b) shall provide to Defendants a verified list of their members as of November 6, 2020.
There is virtually no question that this order is addressed to the Pam Bondi Justice Department, given that it names her specifically:
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, its Director, the Attorney General of the United States, and their officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert with them and who have actual notice of this Judgment are hereby enjoined…
To their credit, the Second Amendment Foundation has refused to comply with this request, making the following statement on X:
To be clear: SAF will not be turning over any lists of membership information to the government. We are frustrated that this judgment acknowledges that the challenged law is unconstitutional, while preventing its enforcement against essentially no one. SAF and our partners are considering all of our legal options and will have updates forthcoming.
