D.C. businessman suffered home raid over “unregistered ammunition,” faces 2 years in prison

by Liz E

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the capital city of the Land of the Free, a businessman and his family were subjected to a violent paramilitary raid for suspicion of exercising one of the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Nearly 3 dozen armed SWAT agents held the family at gunpoint and even used a battering ram to rip a naked child out of the shower. The incredible use of force was initiated because of D.C.’s infamous gun control laws. Even more shocking is the fact that the homeowner could still be put in federal prison, despite the fact that not a single firearm was found in his home.


Mark Witaschek

At around 8:20 p.m. on July 7, 2012, about 30 officers in full tactical gear came banging on the front door of Mark Witaschek, a successful financial adviser, brandishing a search warrant for “firearms and ammunition … gun cleaning equipment, holsters, bullet holders and ammunition receipts,” according to The Washington Times. Once Mr. Witaschek’s 14-year-old daughter allowed the officers inside, they immediately began pointing firearms at everyone in the home, starting with Mr. Witaschek and his girlfriend, Bonnie Harris. Both were upstairs when they were accosted and handcuffed.

Mr. Witaschek described the treatment of his children to The Washington Times. ”They used a battering ram to bash down the bathroom door and pull [my 16-year-old son] out of the shower, naked,” said Witaschek. “The police put all the children together in a room, while we were handcuffed upstairs. I could hear them crying, not knowing what was happening.”

Officers were as gentle with Witaschek’s belongings as they were with his family. “They tossed the place,” he told The Washington Times, and provided unreleased photos of the damage to his home which he estimated at $10,000.

For all this trouble, officers seized four items from the home:

• one handgun holster
• one spent brass casing of .270 caliber ammunition
• one box of Knight bullets for muzzle-loading rifles
• one live round of 12-gauge shotgun ammunition (which Witaschek claims was an inoperable shell that misfired years earlier, kept as a souvenir)

This was not Witaschek’s first encounter with D.C. police either. In June 2012, Witaschek acquiesced to a search of his home by officers from the Gun Recovery Unit. That search turned up a box of .40 caliber ammunition, one gun-cleaning kit, and an antique Colt revolver that police confiscated, even though antique firearms are legal and do not require registration.

After all, in Washington D.C., it is illegal to own firearms without first registering them with the police, and only registered gun owners can legally possess ammunition. This could be the reason Witaschek chose to store his firearms with his sister Sylvia, who lives in Arlington, VA. She was also confronted in her home by D.C. police, whom she refused to allow to view the firearms, just two weeks after the June raid of her brother’s home. The next day, they returned with Arlington County police and a criminal subpoena.

Both police spokesman Gwendolyn Crump and Attorney General of the District of Columbia Irvin Nathan, who signed an affidavit in support of a warrant to arrest Witaschek on August 21, 2012, would not provide any further information on the raid or the case.

Attorney General Nathan has tried his best to get Mr. Witaschek to accept a plea deal, but Witaschek refused. ”It’s the principle,” he told Emily Miller of The Washington Times. Witaschek faces charges of unlawful possession of ammunition and can face up to two years in prison if convicted.

To understand just how draconian this prohibition is, we need to look at the law itself — which is almost unbelievable to someone unfamiliar with the police state in D.C. But here it is, according to D.C. Code § 7-2506.01:

(a) No person shall possess ammunition in the District of Columbia unless:

(1) He is a licensed dealer pursuant to subchapter IV of this unit;

(2) He is an officer, agent, or employee of the District of Columbia or the United States of America, on duty and acting within the scope of his duties when possessing such ammunition;

(3) He is the holder of the valid registration certificate for a firearm of the same gauge or caliber as the ammunition he possesses; except, that no such person shall possess restricted pistol bullets; or

(4) He holds an ammunition collector’s certificate on September 24, 1976.

This is one of the most oppressive ammunition laws in the country. Possessing something that arbitrary and innocuous in most parts of the USA will get a person a SWAT raid and prison time in Washington D.C. The “crime” doesn’t need to involve an actual firearm or any malicious behavior. Enforcers are exempt from the law, and anyone else must seek the district’s permission to exercise their “rights”.

But it gets worse. D.C. code has an interesting way of defining “ammunition.”

Per D.C. Code § 7-2501.01 (2), ammunition in Washington D.C. is defined as:

(2) “Ammunition” means cartridge cases, shells, projectiles (including shot), primers, bullets (including restricted pistol bullets), propellant powder, or other devices or materials designed, redesigned, or intended for use in a firearm or destructive device.

Most shooters consider “ammunition” to be the finished product of several components that is ready to be discharged. This would include a casing fitted with a primer, loaded with powder, clamped to a projectile. While a person can use basic tools to combine the components into a usable round of ammunition, the components themselves cannot be fired. For an idea of how a typical pistol round is configured, examine this diagram:



What is striking about the district’s definition is that it labels all of the separate components as “ammunition.” This means that the already-oppressive ammo ban was written in such a broad manner that it goes far beyond usable rounds of ammo. It was written to include things that couldn’t even be fired if the owner wanted to.

Empty brass .45 casings — illegal in D.C.

An empty brass casing — illegal.

A tiny BB, known as “shot” — illegal.

A piece of metal capable of being a projectile — illegal.

There also appears to be a disturbing double-standard of enforcement at play in in the district. Attorney General Irvin Nathan seems to be dropping the hammer on the Witaschek family, but he declined to press charges against media personality David Gregory or any NBC employees after displaying a prohibited 30-round magazine on live TV, on a show filmed within district limits. This stunt was performed after police advised the network not to display the magazine, but Nathan claimed that “a prosecution would not promote public safety in the District of Columbia nor serve the best interests of the people of the District,” according to The Washington Times. Whose interests are Nathan and his office best serving, and whose safety are they promoting, by protecting Mr. Gregory and defaming Mr. Witaschek?

Mr. Witaschek’s trial, which began November 4th, is ongoing. This would be a golden opportunity the jury to use jury nullification against an immensely unreasonable and unjust law.