The federal government has responded to a California gun store’s refusal to hand over its customer lists with a raid of the company’s four locations.
Just days after Ares Armor CEO Dimitrios Karras was granted a temporary restraining order against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, officers with the agency raided four of the San Diego, Calif., gun stores with search warrants in hand. The federal agents seized computers, customer lists and bases needed to build AR-15s while Ares Armor customers looked on.
“There were women and children inside our retail establishment when the agents came in with guns drawn,” Karras told Fox 5 San Diego. “They came into our firearms manufacturing facility saying, ‘Arms up!’ like they were invading Iraq.”
Last week, ATF agents demanded a list of all customers who had purchased an 80 percent lower receiver — the base needed to construct an AR-15 — from Karras. The agency told the Ares Armor head and former Marine that the part was illegal as it was not compliant with the agency’s specifications.
It is not against the law, though, to build AR-15s from scratch.
In the interest of protecting his customers’ privacy, Karras refused to turn over his list of more than 5,000 clients who purchased the base. He then sought and was granted a temporary restraining order against the ATF.
According to The Washington Times, Karras’ restraining order was reversed after federal Judge Janis Sammartino felt pressure from the Department of Justice.
Heavily armed agents then raided Ares Armor.
“We gave them a black eye publicly,” Karras told Fox 5 of his refusal to turn over his customer list. “They tried to do an underhand deal with us. They said, ‘Hey, hush hush. Keep it secret and nobody’s going to know that we took these customer names from you.'”
A cell phone video taken during the raid shows one agent using a sledgehammer to force open a safe in the store while others seize files and computers.
Another shows agents armed with several firearms hauling plastic containers from the store.
The ATF raid — and seizure of the store’s customer records — has made gun owners nervous.
“I’m kind of fearful, and I’m a law-abiding citizen,” Arnold Yaptangco, an Ares Armor customer and former Marine, told NBC San Diego.
Another expressed the same fear, telling Fox 5 he was waiting for an agent to knock on his door “to tell me they are here to remove my Second Amendment rights.”
The ATF issued a statement to NBC San Diego and told the television station Ares Armor was under investigation for “federal firearms violation [sic].”
“We served a lawful federal search warrant at a number of their businesses,” the statement read. The ATF issued no comment in response to an inquiry about customer information on the computers.
