Even though Joe Biden talked a lot about using federal laws to go after “bad apple” gun deals, gun traffickers, and straw buyers, his biggest priority seemed to be curtailing the rights of lawful gun owners. And in the waning days of his administration, we’re getting another reminder of the soft touch Biden’s DOJ has often applied to individuals who’ve broken the law to get access to a gun. 

It’s been almost three years since police in Woodburn, Oregon found 34-year-old Nicholas Tilmon in possession five rifles when officers responded to an alarm at the Coastal Farms & Ranch Store in the early morning hours of February 25, 2022. Tilmon admitted to police that he’d broken into the store using a blowtorch to shatter a front window and was taken into custody, but even though prosecutors had more than enough evidence to take the case to trial, they offered Tilmon one heckuva plea deal.  

U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon on Wednesday sentenced Tilmon to two years in prison after he pleaded guilty earlier to possessing a firearm as a prohibited person.

… He had been convicted of domestic violence assault in 2008 in Washington state’s Pierce County and was under an order to have no contact with the victim and possess no guns or ammunition.

Tilmon initially was charged in Marion County Circuit Court with burglary and being a felon with a firearm. He was released from the county jail in March 2022 due to overcrowding and placed under county pretrial supervision. A warrant was issued for his arrest when he failed to return to meet with a pretrial officer, according to court records.

He was taken back into custody over a year later in June 2023 after his arrest in Pierce County, Washington. The U.S. Attorney’s Office then pursued a federal prosecution against Tilmon.

As part of a plea agreement, his federal theft of firearm charge was dismissed.

Tilmon could have received ten years behind bars if prosecutors had obtained a conviction at trial. Instead, he’ll soon be released from custody after prosecutors and his attorneys agreed to the two-year sentence. Tilmon’s getting credit for the time he’s spent in jail awaiting trial, so he actually only has a few months to serve in federal prison. 

The past year and nine months has been his longest period of sobriety and he’s “extremely amenable to rehabilitation,” [defense attorney Kara A.] Sagi said. In 2009, Tilmon suffered a devastating double loss of his father and brother, who both died from drug overdoses, she said.

“That’s not a path he wishes to follow,” she said.

Tilmon, who is being held at the federal prison in Sheridan, told the judge, “I just want to be done with this, get out and go to treatment.”

Joe Biden’s DOJ hasn’t treated other prohibited persons with such a soft touch. The Justice Department went after Patrick Darnell Daniels for smoking pot and owning a gun at the same time, and got a judge to sentence Daniels to almost four years in federal prison for that crime. Tilmon, meanwhile, got half that sentence for being a prohibited person in possession of five rifles he snatched from a store during a burglary. 

For his sake, I certainly hope that Tilmon’s time behind bars has been a wake-up call as well as the chance to get clean and sober. At the same time, I don’t see the devastating losses that he’s faced in his life as an excuse or justification for breaking into a store and stealing multiple firearms. Most of us have had to deal with tragedies and hardships in our lives, but those experiences shouldn’t exempt us from consequences when we break the law.