Gifford Law Center sues DOJ for all Communications with NRA

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Gun control advocates on Tuesday sued the U.S. to make it release communications with the firearms lobby, including remarks on a memo by a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives official suggesting some regulations be eased.

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Democracy Forward Foundation seek to compel the Justice Department and the ATF to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests the plaintiffs made earlier. Those requests, filed on July 25, seek communications between Justice Department employees and gun rights groups including the National Rifle Association.

In the complaint, filed in federal court in San Francisco, the plaintiffs refer to an internal white paper by Ronald Turk from early 2017 suggesting the ATF ease certain firearms regulations. Turk, at that time the associate deputy director of the bureau, contacted Mark Barnes, a firearms industry lobbyist, for his input on the memo. The correspondence between the two was released following a Freedom of Information Act request and a subsequent lawsuit filed by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The ATF later said the memo “was something Ron Turk did on his own” and didn’t reflect official agency policy.



https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-10-09/gun-control-advocates-sue-u-s-for-doj-communications-with-nra?__twitter_impression=true