“Imagine yourself sleeping peacefully in your home until, boom, flashbangs are going off in your kitchen, the police are ordering your wife and family outside of your house at gunpoint. They are disrupting your peace and privacy all because you exercised your Second Amendment rights,” Hannah Hill, Vice President of the National Foundation for Gun Rights, asks viewers to do in an interview with Mark Manley, “an innocent man whose house was unjustly raided and his family threatened by the ATF.”
By all accounts Manly, his wife, and their children are good people, good citizens, community and educational leaders, and significantly, not criminals. Wisely, he made sure his family complied, but the long-term effect on them, and on him at being utterly unable to protect them from being taken hostage, is the stuff of recurring nightmares that could trouble them all for life.
So, what happened?
Agents of a government-mandated by the Constitution “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” terrorized an innocent family, and put them all at risk of being shot to death if anyone made a false move or just if an enforcer panicked or screwed up, both Manley’s recollections to Hill and a summary of events on his family’s gofundme page summarizes.
That Manley was not ultimately arrested and prosecuted demands answers to several questions, beginning with “Why did ATF raid them?”
“The warrant was supposedly a part of a long ongoing investigation attempting to find Mr. Manley with illegal firearms/machine guns which nothing recovered was illegal,” the gofundme synopsis states. But per Red State, “Despite the harrowing raid, the agency has not filed charges against Manley, and they took no evidence except for a cell phone.”
“Manley indicated that the raid could have happened because someone falsely told them he possessed illegal firearms,” that report speculates. But it still doesn’t explain why someone would “swat” him.
“The government has been shutting down my two-way events,” Manley asserts. “They’ve been shutting down my workshops, and the only thing they can say is because they received a complaint.”
It’s fair to wonder if that was what happened and the motivation behind it, and if so, who made the call. It’s also fair to wonder if a snitch who is so against such events, one with the connections to involve the authorities, works in or closely with government.
“In one instance, authorities threatened to imprison both Choppa and his wife if he proceeded with a planned event,” the report elaborates. Some evidently view him as a thorn in their sides to be removed.
It’s also fair to wonder if this could have been an act of private revenge. Per a 2019 report from The Washington Post:
“A security guard shot a robber. A grieving mother wants justice, and police want him out of business.”
Manley tells his side of the story on his YouTube MarkChoppa TV feed (Part 1 and Part 2).
What is not fair is engaging in terror raids and endangering the lives of citizens and then just keeping quiet about it and avoiding public inquiry, scrutiny, investigation, and accountability, including, if applicable, after receiving full due process and punishment. Just don’t expect ATF to volunteer anything or, if past practice is an indicator, do anything but stonewall attempts to determine the truth.
There are other questions besides “Why?”
Let’s start with the “police report.” What are the allegations? Who made it out? Based on what? Did it come initially to ATF’s attention from local law enforcement or did the complaint come from someone else? Who?
Then let’s look at the warrant. What made a judge sign it? Which judge? Elected? Party? Appointed? By whom? What alleged evidence rose to a standard that justified jeopardizing human lives this way? And can we at least determine it wasn’t another in a disturbing trend of “wrong house raids”?
Why did ATF seize Manley’s phone? It seems unlikely any fake tip that could set them up sufficiently to justify a warrant and a raid would have come from it, and that raises the question of what – and who else – they are looking to ensnare and why.
Don’t look for any of this to be disclosed without a credible “or else” attached to it, and for that, more is needed than legal action dependent on a gofundme account that has achieved less than a third of its goal at this writing. Don’t expect “the media” to care. And don’t think that a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request will produce anything but more stonewalling and refusals.
The resistance and foot-dragging, along with any civil legal actions, will go on for years with no resolution in sight. The time is past due for public officials with the authority and resources to act to do so. This is where citizens could really use some of those pledges of Second Amendment protection we heard along the campaign trail from Donald Trump, and from every Republican in Congress who won their seat because of gun owner support.
First, there’s the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee. They have subpoena authority and can summon everyone involved to testify under oath, and compel production of all communications (paper/email/phone call/text) records, documentation, work papers, etc.
And there’s the Trump administration itself, that once inaugurated, must be reminded to begin the process of fulfilling its promises on reining in ATF. Whomever the new director turns out to be, there’s plenty more to do besides cutting back on the Bureau’s mania for redefining parts as firearms, inciting the media mob to spook the herd on “ghost guns,” destroying FFLs for paperwork glitches, and more.
The new agency head, and incoming AG Pam Bondi (if she can resist her career tendency to throw her weioght behind state infringements and get on with the legitimate business of protecting the rights of the people), can order ATF functionaries to cooperate, and discipline, fire, and/or prosecute wrongdoers who won’t.
Let’s hope our “gun rights leaders” in the various groups relying on member donations see the value in communicating that message to their administration contacts. Because they could use help, too, and instead of pressuring already tapped out donors for more money to privately fight endless legal battles, call on DOJ to use its virtually unlimited war chest to enforce “the supreme Law of the Land” and protect the Second Amendment from inferior government infringements.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
BATFE is too corrupt to continue in an honest government.
This illegal invasion by the tyrannical SS shock troops is absolutely unjustified. Everyone involved should be fired and imprisoned for 10 years for violating an American’s Constitutional RIGHTS. ‘Deprivation of Rights Under the Color of Law’ = 10 years in prison. Look it up.
I am 70 years old and I can remember even in my teens the ATF displaying brutal thuggish behavior. For many years I have pondered why the Government is allowed tamper with citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights, when the Founders all clearly said the Bill of Rights are GOD Given Rights beyond the authority of Government. I can remember in my early teens you could walk into any Gun Shop, Hardware Store or Dept. Store in my town and buy a gun and walk out with it no paperwork or questions. Once a Postman delivered my Dad an M-1 Carbine he… Read more »
Gestapo mentality. These people need to never work for government again, also never ever carry a firearm again.
Sixth Amendment doesn’t come into play until you are arrested for a criminal offense. they were just engaged in not so subtle threats for not violating any laws. otherwise, he would be in jail.
the swatters are never brought to account for their bovine excrement actions. if they were, maybe there would be fewer attempts.
When and where did this take place? Are armed raids the only way these thugs know how to conduct an investigation?????? You would think they would have learned not to put innocent citizen’s lives in jeopardy like this after they killed innocent citizen Bryan Malnowski last spring. The ATF is beyond reprehensible.