“It Was Hell,” Wyoming Couple Says About Pre-Dawn Raid By ATF Agents
A Big Horn couple says an ATF raid for their firearms “was hell.” But the state of Wyoming says their firearms were legal, and they have the paperwork to prove it. A bill planned for this session aims to “clarify” that state-federal conflict.
Randy Kane was sound asleep in the wee hours Nov. 23, 2023, when, without warning, absolute chaos broke loose.
“All of the sudden there were lots of lights going on outside, pounding on the door and people screaming at us to come out,” Kane told Cowboy State Daily.
‘I Got The Full-Blown Mob Squad’
A team of federal agents, armed and in full gear, showed up at the door of the home he shares with Noreen Scroggins in Big Horn, a small community in Sheridan County, he said.
The agents were there to serve a search warrant for Kane’s house, pickup and person. The warrant was based upon accusations that, as a convicted felon, he was in illegal possession of numerous firearms.
Kane and Scroggins said they were baffled because, as they understood it, Kane’s firearms rights had been restored by the state of Wyoming.
And he had a certificate from Gov. Mark Gordon’s office to prove it.
But the time for those arguments would come later, Kane said. In the moment, he felt he had no choice but to comply.
“I got the full-blown mob squad. I think if I had resisted, they would have shot me,” he said.
“I had so many red dots on me, I felt like I was a porcupine,” Kane added, in reference to laser sights on the agents’ firearms.
Scroggins said she was also terrified.
“It was hell,” she told Cowboy State Daily.
“There were all these ATF agents with guns and body armor and drones,” she said. “They had already pulled Randy out of the house.”
They both ended up in handcuffs, spending much of that cold morning sitting in agents’ vehicles.
Kane said he was forcibly pulled from the house, wearing only undershorts and a T-shirt.
Scroggins was also unprepared to be outside in the cold.
“I just had my nightshirt on,” she said.
She added that when she hesitated to go outside, an agent threatened to come drag her out of the house.
Confusion Between State, Federal Laws
The raid might have resulted from a gap between Wyoming statutes and federal laws regarding restoring the rights of non-violent felony offenders.
A Wyoming statute restoring gun rights to nonviolent felons who had served their terms went into effect in 2023.
However, it remained uncertain whether that applied to people with felony convictions in federal courts.
That’s because the federal government still regards it as illegal for felons, even nonviolent ones, to possess firearms.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on Feb. 14, 2024, issued a statement warning that the Wyoming rights restoration statute doesn’t cover federal convictions.
“The (state) certificate purports to restore an individual’s firearm rights, which were lost because of a federal court conviction,” the agency’s alert said. “ATF is in the process of notifying those affected individuals, by letter, that the Restoration of Rights certificate issued by the State of Wyoming DOES NOT restore their rights to possess firearms and/or ammunition under federal law.”
Bill Aims To Fix The Problem
Mark Jones of Buffalo, the national director of Gun Owners of America (GOA), has long been critical of that gap between state and federal laws.
Last year, he warned legislators of what he considered to be a flaw in the Wyoming statutes.
Testifying before a legislative committee during the 2024 session, he used the story of what happened to Kane and Scroggins as an example of the peril the flawed statue could bring to Wyomingites.
He didn’t reveal the couple’s names at that time.
A bill expected to be introduced during the current legislative session could fix the problem, Jones said.
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that he plans to introduce a bill to “clarify” the status of the restoration of gun rights for nonviolent felons.
He added that the bill had not yet been formally introduced or assigned a number.
Jones said that GOA attorneys had “helped craft that legislation.”
Part of the bill’s intent is to prevent what happened to Kane and Scroggins from happening to anybody else, he said. A Big Horn couple says an ATF raid for their firearms “was hell.” But the state of Wyoming says their firearms were legal, and they have the paperwork to prove it. A bill planned for this session aims to “clarify” that state-federal conflict.
Continues at Cowboy State Daily
Mark Heinz
Mark Heinz January 16, 2025