FEDS TRASH LAW-ABIDING
GUN OWNER'S HOME
by Richard E. Gardiner
"Well, it's been a rough month," begins Johnnie Lawmaster. "I just get laid off, and my divorce became final. But I just wasn't ready for what happened this particular Monday."
That particular Monday was was December 16, the first day of the Bill of Rights' third century, the day when federal agents and local law enforcement officers broke into the house in Tulsa that always flew the U.S. flag. When Lawmaster drove into the driveway that bleak afternoon, one of his neighbors had some news.
"'Ohmigod, John, you are in big trouble!' my neighbor tells me. 'Sixty police, federal agents and the bomb squad busted into your house, kicked down the door, cut locks off your gun safe.' I couldn't believe it. Then I walked inside. What a nightmare."
It was no nightmare; it was horribly real life. Apparently acting on information the Lawmaster possessed an illegal firearm, some thirty agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) teamed up with state and Tulsa police authorities, search warrant in hand, to search for a "Colt, AR-15, .223 caliber machine gun, unknown serial number."
The warrant, issued by U.S. Magistrate John Leo Wagner, also authorized agents to seize "any tools used in the alateration or modification of firearms, such as files or drills;documents, papers, books, records, and other tangible properties which identify occupants or owners of the property to be searched...."
Reports vary, but according to neighbors, the joint task force operation aimed at the unemployed warehouseman from a nearby hospital involved some 60 agents and local law enforcement personnel against Lawmaster. They cordoned off the street; took station with weapons drawn in the back yard; used a battering ram to break through the front door; kicked inthe back door; broke into his gun safe; threw personal papers around the house; spilled boxes of ammunition on the floor; broke into a small, locked box that contained precious coins; stood on a table to peer through the ceiling tiles, breaking the table in the process. Then, they left. The doors were closed but not latched, much less locked. The ammo and guns were left unsecured.
"My neighbor said about 20 officers hid by the back shed and a boat trailered in the back yard before they began kicking in the back door. They broke the lock on the shed and left it open.
"My front and back doors were pulled shut, but they were busted through and couldn't latch. Anybody could have waltzed in there and stolen everything I own. A child could have taken a gun. The guns, the safe -- everything was open and laying around. I keep all my magazines empty, but someone had loaded them. While I was looking around in amazement, the gas, electric and water companies show up to turn the power off. They said they were told to shut things down.
Then I found the note. "Nothing Found - ATF."
One agent pressed the neighbor for information about Lawmaster. Agents began to break through the door of a trailer parked in Lawmaster's back yard, but the neighbor protested. "It was his trailer," Lawmaster relates. "He had a key and let them in. Then he asked my neighbor of I had an AR-15, and he said, 'Yeah.' 'Does he have an auto sear,' and my neighbor said, 'I don't know.' But my neighbor had an NRA cap on, so the agent said, 'Lapse of memory, huh?'"
Lawmaster's neighbor told him the agent nodded towards the neighbor's hat -- a cap bearing the NRA insignia. "The agent said, 'You're one of *them* and you don't know what an auto sear is?"
"The agent then pulled a book from the top of Lawmaster's stereo and, flipping through it, asked the neighbor about the photographs of firearms that were pictured in the book. 'Does he have this? Does he have this?' the agent keeps asking and my neighbor says 'No, no....'"
"They didn't make any attempt to notify me. I've lived in Tulsa all my life and never got more than a traffic ticket. How come they can't look that up, realize I've been law-abiding my whole life, then come to the door when I'm home? They didn't leave someone here to watch over my private property. They didn't even come by to explain what happened. They just raided my home, ransaked it, left it wide open and left."
Lawmaster placed a phone call to the local BATF agent. "I asked, 'Are you gonna' arrest me?' and he said, 'No.' I asken him, "Who is going to repair and clean up my house?' And he said, "If you're going to talk to me, come down to my office.'
"'I can't come down!' I said. 'My doors are broken!' If I had been on vacation and I didn't have friendly neighbors, I would have lost everything I own. Here I am a competent, responsible firearms owner, and the government leaves them open, unlocked, with ammo strewn around."
Lawmaster said the agent advised him, "If you want your door to lock and your gun safe to lock, you're gonna' have to pay for it yourself."
"'Oh, I'll come right down, alright,' I told him. 'I'll come down, but I'll bring my attorney.' And he said, 'Well, you bring your attorney, and we won't talk to you.'"
Lawmaster has gone back to cleaning up his home....restowing his firearms and ammunition....pulling a leather holster out of his dog's water bowl....arranging cans of food back in the cupboard....righting his bed....sorting through the Christmas presents that were dumped on the floor....putting his life back in order.
When Lawmaster's attorney went to the U.S. Courthouse to obtain a copy of the affidavit supporting the search warrant so that he could determine whether there was probable cause for the issuance fo the warrant, he was told by court officials that the U.S. Attorney had asked that the affidavit be sealed. Wondering what exactly the government was trying to hide, Lawmaster's attorney, working together with the NRA's Legislative Counsel, is filing a motion asking the court to unseal the affidavit.
"You wouldn't believe the number of NRA members who have called to offer assistance. And I've asked them to call my congressman, [u.S. Rep. James M.] Inhofe. And they're telling him 'The government can't be allowed to do this to good people. This has got to be stopped.'"
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