PA Bill Number: HB2663

Title: Providing for older adults protective services; and making a repeal.

Description: Providing for older adults protective services; and making a repeal. ...

Last Action: Referred to AGING AND OLDER ADULT SERVICES

Last Action Date: Nov 19, 2024

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ATF and DOJ punt on response in machine gun case :: 03/16/2015

Attorneys for the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives declined a federal judge’s order allowing them to file a response to the plaintiff’s sur-reply (an additional reply to a motion after it has been briefed) in the Case of Hollis v Eric Holder and B. Todd Jones. The response, filed Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Dallas Division, was due March 11.

“Plaintiff’s sur-reply brief adds little to the arguments before the Court,” the government contended. “Defendants therefore rest on their previous briefs, and are prepared to address any specific questions the Court may have in a supplemental filing or at oral argument [and] the Court should dismiss this case or enter summary judgment for Defendants.”

Hollis, acting individually and as trustee of a revocable living trust, is suing Holder and Jones in their official capacities for administering, executing and enforcing “statutory and regulatory provisions [that] generally act as an unlawful de facto ban on the transfer or possession of a machine gun manufactured after May 19, 1986.” As reported in this column last Thursday, his sur-reply argues the federal ban on machine guns manufactured after May, 1986 “defies the Constitution,” as virtually identical firearms produced before the arbitrary cutoff are legal to own provided other federal taxation and registration provisions are met and they are not banned by state law.

Calling a reference made by the plaintiff to another case “misplaced,” the government added a footnote that Mance v. Holder, in which a federal judge found the ban on interstate handgun transfers unconstitutional, “is not applicable to the decision here and the court is not bound by the decision of another judge from this district.”

“I was a bit disappointed reading the sur-sur-reply,” attorney for the plaintiff Stephen Stamboulieh told Gun Rights Examiner. “Apparently the government thinks its case is very strong, even in light of a longer standing portion of the Gun Control Act being struck down a few weeks ago.

“Additionally, the government continues to ignore evidence that is included in the Appendix to Hollis' Response (App.069) in that the government has in fact allowed post 1986 machineguns to be transferred and possessed by non-governmental entities, ‘ he elaborated. “We look forward to the next step and we are hopeful the Court grants our request for oral argument and ultimately denies the government's motion to dismiss so we can start discovery on the issues of post 1986 approvals.”