While Rights Restoration Exists, DOJ Stonewalling FOIA Requests on Criteria

One of the best bits of news to come out of the Department of Justice this year is that gun rights restoration is back on the menu. After decades of theoretically existing, only being completely defunded and thus not really a thing, Attorney General Pam Bondi pulled the process back under the DOJ’s direct umbrella, thus making it a viable thing.

That was fantastic news.

To quell the upset that erupted, it was made clear that it wasn’t going to be an automatic process and that people would have to meet certain criteria to be considered. Released serial killers need not apply.

The problem is that no one knows what criteria the DOJ used in its initial restoration of ten individuals’ Second Amendment rights Iincluding actor Mel Gibson, and apparently, the DOJ doesn’t want to tell anyone.

“No response is required…  Plaintiff is not entitled to compel the production of any record… This Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction… Plaintiff is neither eligible for nor entitled to attorney’s fees [and] Plaintiff’s request is improper to the extent is it unduly burdensome,” US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro and Assistant US Attorney John J. Pardo  argue in the Department of Justice’s answer, filed Dec. 19 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The response was to a complaint filed by attorney Stephen Stamboulieh on behalf of this correspondent after a Freedom of Information Act request to determine rights restoration eligibility criteria was ignored.

Because it’s so easy to end up on the prohibited persons list (including the innocent pleading out to avoid great expense and threatened draconian punishment if they lose), it seemed in the interests of gun owners to know what criteria were used and who is likely to be eligible for consideration. DOJ, despite publicizing its championing of rights restoration, officially disagrees.

The initial request was submitted in April after the Justice Department had announced it had “identified ten (10) individuals for firearm restoration [actor Mel Gibson among them],” and said that the “Attorney General has reviewed all the relevant facts for each individual … including the materials that each individual submitted seeking either a pardon or relief from federal firearms disabilities…”

Left undefined was what criteria citizens seeking similar relief would need to meet to be considered for equal treatment. To that end, a FOIA request was filed asking for:

• All records “reviewed” by the Attorney General for each individual listed in the filing;
• All records “that each individual submitted” to receive relief under 18 U.S.C. 925(c); and
• All other records not “submitted” by the list of individuals but relied upon by the Attorney General in establishing that “each individual will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief to each individual would not be contrary to the public interest.”

Now, there are some things that the government cannot and should not be compelled to release via a FOIA request. Things like classified information or personal information, such as social security numbers, addresses of private parties, etc. I think we can all understand that stuff being off the table.

But what criteria will be considered in gun rights restoration cases? Why is that so secretive? That should have already been made public so that people who aren’t going to meet that criteria won’t waste the DOJ’s time or their money trying to get their gun rights restored.

Yet, as writer David Codrea notes, “Pirro’s position is consistent with not just the DOJ’s bipolar inconsistency on the Second Amendment, but also her own.” He brings up her previous anti-gun history as a New York state district attorney, then speaking to the NRA a decade later, only to call for expanded background checks and seemingly arguing for Australia’s gun control laws a short time after that.

He makes a valid point about the “bipolar inconsistency” of both Pirro and the DOJ.

And, like Codrea, I know that we wouldn’t have even gotten this far without the Trump administration, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have grounds to look at stuff like this and demand better.

No one is asking for any special criteria for any special group. They just want to know what the standard will be. Why is that too much to ask for? Why is Pirro stonewalling on this, of all things?

Bondi and the DOJ need to do better on stuff like this. We’re not asking for the moon. We just want information that should have been voluntarily released to the public anyway.

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