BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a lawsuit challenging a Connecticut gun control law have filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order due to a new rule released by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol. , Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on the designation of firearms. puts thousands of citizens of the Constitutional State in grave legal danger.
SAF joins the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and three private citizens, Jennifer Hamilton, Michael Stiefel and Eddie Grant, Jr. They are represented by Connecticut attorneys Doug Dubitsky of North Windham, Craig C. Fishbein of Wallingford and Cameron L Atkinson of Harwinton. .
“When ATF published its new rule, redesignating a class of firearms known as ‘any other firearm’ or simply ‘other’ as ‘rifles’ or ‘short-barreled rifles’ depending on barrel length, all of those weapons suddenly they fell within the state’s definition of an assault weapon,” said SAF Founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This immediately placed thousands of owners of previously classified ‘other’ firearms in legal jeopardy because their possession is now a felony.”
“This reclassification,” added SAF executive director Adam Kraut, who is a practicing attorney, “is a textbook example of the harm that an arbitrary change of rules and definitions can cause that makes purchased firearms legally are suddenly illegal, turning their owners into criminals, essentially at the stroke of a pen. We are asking the court to intervene to prevent a legal nightmare for thousands of Connecticut citizens.”
SAF and its partners filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, and a memorandum in support of their motion. In the memorandum, they say the Court “should find that the change in federal law has placed Plaintiffs at probable and extreme risk of being subjected to the heavy burden of criminal prosecution as felons under Connecticut politically motivated law without prior notice and in violation of your Second Amendment rights.”
“ATF’s rule change, which took effect immediately, flagrantly placed thousands of law-abiding Connecticut gun owners on the wrong side of the law, through no fault of their own,” Gottlieb observed. “That may be fine in a police state, but not in the United States, and we are asking the court to act quickly to prevent a horrific injustice.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt legal action, research, publishing, and education group focusing on the constitutional right and inheritance to own and own guns. fire privately. Founded in 1974, the Foundation has grown to more than 720,000 members and supporters and runs many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.