As Attorney General, Merrick Garland was all on board with President Joe Biden's anti-gun agenda. That included things like assault weapon bans.

While it never happened, thankfully, Garland never seemed to have an issue with any infringement opposed by Biden. 

So it was kind of ironic that, as a parting gift, he was given a Thompson rifle. Now, it was almost definitely the modern, semi-auto version of the firearm. However, it was still a Thompson, which qualifies as a so-called assault weapon in pretty much every jurisdiction that bans such firearms.

Including the District of Columbia.

Now, questions are being asked and information is being sought.

“FBI Director Wray gifts Merrick Garland a federally-banned ‘Tommy Gun’,” BizPac Review reported earlier this month. “While addressing Garland, Wray offered him a special gift: ‘So, on behalf of the 38,000 men and women of the FBI I’d like to present to you, your very own Tommy Gun.’”

It’s not really “federally banned” per se, just highly regulated, albeit 13 states and the District of Columbia have bans.

...

Not lost on observers was the hypocrisy of the FBI Director, who arrests citizens on federal gun charges, “gifting” a “tommy gun” to an Attorney General who prosecutes them, all in spite of the Second Amendment’s clear mandate that “ the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

“With a freaking 50 round drum! Talk about a “high-capacity ammunition feeding device! (But then, they think of us as peasants and they are the gentry),” one comment poster observed. “They’re openly mocking the average citizen… If there was ever a reason to support the 2A,” replied another.

It certainly appears that way. It also raises the question “Is the gun real, and have all the appropriate bureaucratic/”law enforcement” hoops been jumped through that would land an “ordinary citizen” behind bars for a good chunk of their life if they skipped any?

What's more, it's illegal to ship a Thompson to the District of Columbia.

Then there are questions about whether the gift is legal under federal ethics rules.

On Monday, attorney Stephen Stamboulieh filed a FOIA request to try and get some answers. Considering that Garland is no longer calling the shots, it's probable that the request will be met in a timely manner.

Look, there's a lot of hypocrisy at work here in giving Garland a freaking Tommy gun. However, my own take is that law enforcement is usually exempt from all of this, so it's probably legal under those exemptions--the attorney general is considered a law enforcement officer, after all--but even if that's true, it's still hypocritical as hell.

Garland and Wray happily served a man who spent four years pushing to ban the very gun they transferred live on CSPAN. This is a gun they'd have happily arrested you for owning if they got half a chance, and they didn't blink.

I also have questions as to who actually paid for the gun. If it was private parties, that's one thing, but if this was a gift from the Department of Justice, that makes the whole thing even worse.

We'll have to see what the FOIA request uncovers, but I doubt there's anything that would make that whole thing less infuriating.