A week ago, Minnesota television station KSTP ran with a story about a mysterious “federal memo” allegedly being sent to law enforcement agencies and Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL) regarding bump-fire stocks.
Aside from pages waved about on camera by reporter Beth McDonough, no one else has seen the memo. KSTP still declines to publish it, paraphrase the contents (if they’re protecting a source), or even say who signed it and when. Apparently the DOJ denies sending such a memo.
David Codrea and I have been trying to get KSTP to publish it, to no avail. McDonough, the reporter for KSTP who “broke” the news of the memo, was asked for a statement for-the-record on why KSTP will not publish the alleged memo.
She, and the station declined to respond. -crickets-
So what can we tell about this memo? All I’ve seen of what seems to be the document is the handful of pages in McDonough’s hand on screen. A screenshot of the documents doesn’t tell me much; too low resolution. It looks vaguely like ATF letterhead.
Compare this…
…to these real examples.
The logo on the KSTP letter could be the ATF seal, but it’s set far lower on the page than the examples. Other things like the divider line, addresses, and control numbers which I might expect, don’t seem to be there. But, again, the image quality is poor.
It strikes me as something a person might have scanned from real letters on the Internet, then pasted into their own word processor. Maybe someone with the ATF, maybe a prankster.
All the “information” which McDonough mentions sounds straight out of the November 28, 2018 CNN report citing “a senior Justice Department official.”
Over at ar15.com user “AT7” has apparently found a better resolution image, and reports
The memo is addressed to “Special Agents in Charge”
It is from a person in “Fiscal Operations”
Subject is “bump stock type device” with two more words, possibly “abandonment process”. It is dated November 24 2018.
FFLs generally not being SACs, it’s hardly surprising that no FFL (including several at ar15.com, as well as Georgia and Ohio FFLs contacted) have seen this memo.
So what does KSTP have, and where did it come from? What does it say?
KSTP’s silence on a story of major national interest is peculiar, to say the least.
(More Tip Jar Options) |
Hoax. Or it says they can’t reclassify a bump stock as a “machine gun”, which could explain dead silence from them. Goes against the Left’s wishes.
Looks like Legal size paper, maybe printed it out using the wrong paper selection.
I’m currently inclined to think KSTP got hoaxed. They stopped responding to our contacts. I expect the two stories to vanish any time now.
Bump-stocks being an accessary, how does this play into it?
https://blog.princelaw.com/2018/12/10/atf-discontinues-accessory-classifications/
Per the NPRM, bump-fire stocks would be machineguns in and of themselves (same way a DIAS is a “machinegun”), not an accessory.
Thanks.
Maybe Beth needs to be tracked down and interrogated… Just saying, Black and Decker might be in town,,,
Middle finger raised high.
Another unenforceable law. What are they going to do? I suppose they could take slide-fire’s sales records and go door-to-door. I know “probable cause” doesn’t mean much these days, but how would that work? A blanket “search any property of anyone on the list” warrant or just use it as a “GOTCHA” if they find one later? Being as these are small and 99.9% plastic it wouldn’t be like looking for stashed firearms. What a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.