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"I'd like to know ... who those 21 people were; whether they were prohibited persons who never got as far as filling out the form and, therefore, couldn't be prosecuted for anything," Gardiner said, "or whether they were people who were black or women who the agents went up and had a chat with and they said, 'Forget it, I'm getting out of here. I don't want to stick around these guys,' even though it would have been perfectly lawful for them to purchase."

The Virginia State Police memo also details how the ATF retrieved information from each gun buyer's transaction form to determine where they lived so that a so-called "residence check" could be conducted.

"[I]f the purchaser was located in a certain area of either the City of Richmond or the County of Henrico, ATF personnel would direct either the Richmond PD or Henrico PD Residence Check Team to go by the residence of the individual whose information was contained on the ATF 4473 form to determine if the individual resided at the residence," the VSP memo states.

Based on what the agents found, "they (ATF) would permit the transfer of the firearm or conduct further questions of the purchaser," according to the VSP document.

But Gardiner said the memo raises a number of questions about the legality of the actions taken by federal, state, county and local agents and officers.

"What is state and local law enforcement doing being 'dispatched' to people's houses to do that?" Gardiner asked. "They have no authority under the state law, that I'm aware of, to make that kind of investigation about whether somebody is a resident of the state."

State, county and municipal police agencies are "creatures of statute," according to Gardiner.

"They have only such authority as the law gives them. They have no authority to do what they think is appropriate. If the General Assembly of Virginia wanted to give them that authority, of course, it could consider it and possibly do it," he continued. "But it, certainly, has not done that."

Gardiner also believes the ATF agents violated federal law by providing the information to local police officials that in turn was used to conduct the residence checks. The statute authorizes information from those forms to be released only to state and local police "with respect to the identification of persons prohibited from purchasing or receiving firearms or ammunition who have purchased or received firearms or ammunition."

"ATF doesn't have any authority to give them that information, even assuming that the legislature had given both state and local police the authority to do stuff like that," Gardiner said. "There's no authority under federal law for ATF to make such a request."

Gardiner said that authorization to share information also imposes limits.

"Congress has specifically addressed this question of ATF's authority to give out information to state and local and, indeed, even to other federal law enforcement agencies and said, 'Here's what they can do,'" Gardiner explained. "And the long standing rules of law are that if the Congress specifically gives them this authority, it has denied them all other authority. So ATF had no authority to do what they were doing."

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