Humphrey Requests Investigation into ATF Actions
OKLAHOMA CITY – Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, today submitted a letter to the state's attorney general, to the sheriff of Pushmataha County, to the governor and to other judicial and law enforcement agencies asking for an investigation into an alleged raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on a Pushmataha County resident and business owner that resulted in the forfeiture of the man's federal firearms license.
Humphrey said he was contacted by Russell Fincher, who lives and owns a firearms business in Clayton, who said his home had been raided by about a dozen ATF agents who coerced him at gunpoint into signing pre-prepared paperwork to terminate his federal firearms license. Fincher said his 13-year-old son was present during the raid.
"If this report is true, and I have every reason to believe it is, then it would appear the ATF’s actions constitute a gross misuse and abuse of their federal police powers."
Humphrey said he knows Fincher not only as a business owner in his House district but as a schoolteacher and a pastor.
Humphrey said another matter of concern is that one agent is reported to have told Fincher, “Tell your firearms buddies we are coming after them.”
"This seems an obvious illegal threat," Humphrey said.
Humphrey, the chair of the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee, said he has helped pass legislation that allows law-abiding citizens the right to constitutionally carry firearms and that state that Oklahoma county sheriffs should not allow the illegal seizure of such firearms by federal agents.
He is asking those to whom he's reaching out to investigate whether ATF agents abused police powers to force and extort Mr. Fincher into terminating his federal firearms license and whether agents made threats toward all Oklahoma firearms dealers.
"As an Oklahoma state representative, I believe I have a duty and obligation to declare our state should not allow the intentional and egregious actions of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to deny Oklahomans of their rights to own and carry firearms," he said.
A copy of the full letter is attached.
Justin Humphrey serves District 19 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. His district includes Choctaw and Pushmataha counties and parts of Atoka and Bryan counties.
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