Harford dealer loses bid to resume selling guns
“I think he’s wrong with regard to his interpretation of the word ‘willfully,’” Gardiner said Tuesday. Gardiner said he quoted recent Supreme Court opinions when he argued that the Baltimore ATF must prove that Scheuerman “consciously disregarded the law” and that his actions were an “aggravated or extreme departure from standards of ordinary care.”
“If [’willfully’] means that in every other federal statute, they probably meant it to mean that in this statute,” Gardiner said, arguing Quarles’ cites were outdated. “There are cases pre-1986 that came up with [Quarles’] terminology, but the difference is Congress amended the statute in 1986 to include the word ‘willfully.’”
Asked why Scheuerman was only cited again seven years after his first violation and six years after his second, Clare Weber, spokeswoman for the Baltimore division of ATF, said her office’s roughly 10 investigators had many federal firearm licensees to monitor.
“There’s a lot of FFLs in the state of Maryland, and we’re doing our best to get out there,” Weber said.
As for whether Scheuerman might face further discipline for the hundreds of missing guns, U.S. Attorney’s office spokeswoman Marcia Murphy said the erstwhile gun dealer has already faced stiff justice by losing his license.
“Since he runs a gun shop, that’s pretty extreme,” Murphy said of the revocation. “This is not an everyday occurrence.”
Gardiner had not spoken to his client and could not say whether Scheuerman would appeal the decision or if he would continue to operate the non-firearms part of his Fallston store.
In a similar case last February, U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson upheld the ATF’s decision to revoke the federal firearms- dealers license of RSM Inc., owner of Valley Gun and Police Supply in Parkville, Baltimore County. That decision was appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the revocation.
WHAT THE COURT HELD
Case:
Scheuerman v. Herbert (ATF), U.S. Dist. Ct. No. 102. Published. Opinion by Quarles, J. Filed May 15, 2007.
Issue:
Was the Baltimore director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives correct in revoking a Harford County man’s federal firearms-dealer license after the man was cited for 817 violations of the Gun Control Act?
Holding:
Yes; affirmed. The gun dealer willfully violated the act, and his punishment was thus appropriate.