NOTE: Levine responded to Larson's February 25, 1998, complaint to Senator Barbara Mikulski (Maryland) by re-sending Larson a copy of her March 3, 1998, letter. Senator Mikulski is a member of the Senate Treasury, Postal Service and Civil Service Appropriations, which is counterpart to the House, and thus is in a position to affect BATF's fiscal year 1999 budget. In his May 29, 1998, complaint to Senator Mikulski regarding Levine's refusal to say whether or not Larson's smooth bore H&R Handy-Guns are contraband and subject to forfeiture and seizure because BATF may have illegally registered or transferred them in the past without Larson's knowledge and before he purchased them in the early 1990s, Larson included copies of the January 31, 1998, letter to Nereida Levine, the February 8, 1998, letter to John Magaw, Nereida Levine's letter of March 3, 1998, that are in his April 3, 1998, testimony before the House Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations, and which appear elsewhere on this page. ------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS WASHINGTON, D.C. 20226 May 19, 1998 Mr. Eric M. Larson P.O. Box 5497 Takoma Park, MD 20913 Dear Mr. Larson: This is in response to your letter of February 25, 1998, to Senator Barbara A. Mikulski. Senator Mikulski requested that we respond to you directly. You asked that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms respond to two concerns addressed in your letters to us of January 31, 1998, and February 8, 1998. Your first letter concerned the validity of the registration of firearms to you. We responded to you on March 3, 1998 and are enclosing a copy of the letter. Your second letter concerned additions to the firearms registration database and document destruction. You noted in your February 25th letter that the Office of the Inspector General, Department of the Treasury, is conducting an audit of our firearm registration practices. Since the audit is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment at this time. Should any additional information be needed, please contact us at (202) 927-8330. Sincerely yours, (signed) Nereida W. Levine Chief, National Firearms Act Branch Enclosure ------------------------------------------------------- page 1 Eric M. Larson P.O. Box 5497 Takoma Park, Maryland 20913 (301) 270-3450 larsone@erols.com May 29, 1998 The Honorable Barbara Mikulski United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Senator Mikulski: I am writing this letter to ask that you respectfully consider supporting my recent suggestion that the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR) be removed from custody of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and relocated to the Department of Justice, in light of BATF's recent response to my question about whether or not certain firearms I own are contraband subject to seizure and forfeiture because BATF itself illegally registered or transferred these firearms years before I lawfully acquired them. As you can see from the enclosed, the BATF has for the second time answered a question that I did not ask, by repeating that the NFRTR shows the firearms in question are lawfully registered to me, a fact I have known for some time. In fact, I raised this issue in my 1998 testimony before the House Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations (the relevant pages from the printed hearing record are enclosed). As noted below, the fact that the firearms are lawfully or validly registered to me does not keep them from being seized as contraband. The question the BATF is refusing to answer is whether it regards these firearms as contraband subject to seizure and forfeiture, which is a very different question from the one it has answered twice. The reason is that, as my 1998 testimony documents (see pages 33 to 39 of the printed hearing record), the BATF seized and executed a forfeiture action against an NFA firearm that was lawfully registered to its owner on the grounds that the firearm had been illegally registered, even though the BATF had lost its own records and was unable to determine that fact. The lawful owner abandoned the firearm because he was fearful of retaliation by BATF, and because the cost of fighting BATF in Federal Court exceeded the value of the firearm itself. There is, of course, a reason that the BATF keeps answering a question I did not ask. The reason is that if BATF states that the firearms are not subject to seizure and forfeiture because BATF has not illegally registered or transferred them without my knowledge years before I acquired them, and I produce documentation that BATF has actually done so, then I have caught BATF in an institutional lie. In fact, I sent documentation to this effect to Ms. Carol Bergen, of the Chicago office of the Treasury Department Inspector General, earlier this year. The implications of this are far-reaching, because, as my 1997 and 1998 testimonies note, the BATF appears to have illegally registered nearly page 2 2,500 NFA firearms in one category of registrations alone, and the number may be at least as great in other registration groups. In other words, there are thousands of NFA firearm owners in the position that I am in, which is not knowing if at some unknown time in the future, the BATF will suddenly move to seize these firearms. On the other hand, if the BATF states that it has, indeed, illegally registered or transferred my firearms years before I lawfully purchased them, the BATF is admitting at least some of what I have alleged in my testimonies: namely, that the accuracy and integrity of the NFRTR has been compromised by BATF itself. Senator Mikulski, as your constituent, I am respectfully asking you to consider whether this is a reasonable situation; namely, having firearms that I lawfully purchased being effectively placed into a bureaucratic limbo by the only agency empowered to deem these firearms contraband or not. I don't think this is a "gun control" issue; it is a record-keeping issue. Most gun owners do not ever have the opportunity to testify before the Congress. I did so only after carefully exhausting all of the administrative avenues left to me. The conclusion is that the very agency entrusted with enforcing this Nation's gun control laws is unwilling or unable to tell me whether or not it intends to seize my firearms as contraband because BATF illegally registered or transferred them in the past, years vefore I lawfully purchased them. Are the guns contraband or not? Can that question be answered directly and unambiguously? Finally, BATF notes that in a second letter regarding firearm registration destruction by the BATF, that BATF is unable to comment because there is currently an investigation going on into that matter. I would note that like other current investigations involving criminal wrongdoing in other areas of the Government, there is nothing to prevent any representative of any federal agency from stating, in writing, its innocence of wrongdoing. I would like to make an appointment with you and your staff to discuss this matter at a mutually convenient time. I will await your response. In the meantime, I hope that you will consider supporting my suggestion that the NFRTR be removed from custody of the BATF, and permanently relocated to the Department of Justice. Thank you. Very truly yours, (signed) Eric M. Larson Enclosures cc: The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch The Honorable Dan Burton The Honorable Jim Kolbe