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?

They aren’t telling.

KSTP’s silence on a story of major national interest is peculiar, to say the least.

 

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