By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Oklahoma pastor and former teacher and federally-licensed firearm dealer Russell Fincher surprised the Gun Rights Policy Conference during its Sunday session with his personal story about how agents of the
Biden administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were weaponized against him and raided his home.
Fincher’s story was reported by SAF Investigative Journalism Project editor Lee Williams in 2024,in the midst of the Biden administration’s war on guns and dealers. He was one of the people who received a full pardon from President Donald Trump last month along with former sailor Patrick “Tate” Adamiak.
Unlike Adamiak, Fincher was not imprisoned, but his life became a living Hell thanks to Biden’s ATF zero tolerance policy.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Fincher told the audience. “How in the world could that happen to a teacher? How in the world could that happen to a pastor?
“I can tell you,” he explained, “because one of the agents, and there were 15 that raided my house with full SWAT gear, they said ‘If we can get you, we can get anyone.’”
Fincher said ATF agents confiscated 53 of his privately-owned firearms, and he has yet to get them back. The agency allegedly doesn’t know what happened to them. The collection included expensive Colt and Wilson Combat pistols, a High Standard pistol used by a tunnel rat during the Vietnam War, and other firearms.
Calling himself a “nobody,” Fincher rattled off the names, including Williams’, of people who fought for him, and he included the name of God.
He told the audience about how ATF agents aimed rifles at his 13-year-old son’s head, and how he feared for the boy’s life if he tried to run. He recounted how he lost his business, his teaching certificate and how he tried to resign as pastor at his church, but church members wouldn’t let him.
“The church said ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t change. The government changed.”
Fincher made a plea deal and was convicted of selling ammunition to a prohibited person. However, there is no background check on ammunition. He said ATF agents threatened to go after his brother and his father. Throughout the ordeal, he did not lose his faith.
“It’s hard for me to think that there’s anyone that’s in the ATF that has any moral being within them because they don’t care,” Fincher observed.
At one point, he asserted, one of the ATF allegedly offered him a deal. If he would “sign over” his firearms to the agents, “we can make this go away.” Fincher said his response was to tell the agent “this sounds like a shakedown.”
After Williams wrote his initial story appearing at TGM in May 2024, Fincher said the ATF contacted his attorney and asked that Fincher stop speaking to the media, which was Williams.
The attorney’s alleged reply was “Let me get this right. You took his Second Amendment right and now you want to take his First Amendment right?” That apparently was the end of the conversation.
Fincher said what happened to him was the result of the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department and ATF.
He urged President Trump to pardon others still in prison on charges brought during the Biden years.
Fincher finished his talk by quoting a Bible verse and saying a prayer.
