January 10, 2013 - Congressman Phil Gingrey, at the Smyrna Area Council of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce breakfast, praised Jay Wallace, owner of Adventure Outdoors, as “the epitome of responsibility” in a gun business.
Audio from the Marietta Daily Journal via Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM. Click here for audio of Gingrey’s full statement on gun control.
According to court records from a 2006 lawsuit filed by the City of New York
Defendant Adventure Outdoors, Inc. sells or sold handguns at its storefront establishment in Smyrna, Georgia. During the period from March 1994 through October 2001, at least 21 guns sold by Adventure Outdoors were recovered in New York City, both in the hands of individuals with no lawful right to possess a gun and in connection with a variety of violent crimes. In the period 1996 through 2000, a total of 254 guns sold by Adventure Outdoors were recovered in connection with crimes, nationwide. Guns sold by Adventure Outdoors have been recovered in the City in as few as 113 days after sale by Adventure Outdoors in Georgia.
Guns sold by the Defendants are recovered from prohibited persons in New York City in numbers that far exceed recoveries for other comparably-situated retail gun dealers. Guns sold by the Defendants are recovered in the hands of prohibited persons in disproportionate numbers because each Defendant sells handguns in a manner that either intentionally violates federal law or is contrary to stated industry practice or otherwise and therefore negligent. Specifically, upon information and belief, Defendants intentionally or negligently sell handguns to prohibited persons through “strawman” purchases, in which an individual legally able to buy a handgun purchases the gun from a licensed gun dealer, intending to transfer it immediately to a prohibited person.
Defendants know or should know that the handguns they sell in strawman purchases are transferred rapidly to prohibited persons. Defendants know or should know that they could readily reduce the number of guns transferred to prohibited persons by refusing to engage in straw sales. Yet, upon information and belief, Defendants have failed, and still fail, to take the steps necessary to avoid selling handguns in straw sales.
ATF has established that a very small percentage of retail gun dealers – about 1% – are responsible for approximately 57% of the illegally-possessed guns nationwide. The Defendants are among this small group of gun dealers who arm illegal gun possessors. As such, the Defendants cause, contribute to and maintain a public nuisance within the City of New York.
The complaint goes on to describe a particular incident involving Adventure Outdoors
On or about April 8, 2006, a male and a female investigator retained by the City of New York entered Adventure Outdoors’ Smyrna, Georgia store and engaged in a simulated straw purchase that displayed all of the observable, in-store characteristics of the straw purchases described above, without any subsequent transfer of the gun by the “straw purchaser.” Only the male investigator interacted with an Adventure Outdoors salesperson in discussing and selecting a Glock 9mm handgun to purchase. Once the male investigator had the gun and indicated a desire to purchase it, the female investigator, who had not been a part of the discussion, was summoned to the counter to make the purchase.
The female investigator filled out the paperwork. When the male investigator attempted to pay for the gun, the salesperson said that the male investigator needed to initial the form because he was paying for the gun. The male investigator initialed the form, the salesperson performed the background check, and the transaction was completed.
Other gun dealers in the States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, unequivocally identified the virtually identical scenario, at times staged by the same investigators, as an attempted straw purchase. Some of those dealers refused to go through with the sales, even informing the investigators that these sales would be illegal.
On November 7, 2011, a “Special Master” was assigned to monitor Adventure Outdoors for three years to make sure that they no longer participate in straw sales.
Adventure Outdoors is one of the 1% of retail gun businesses that provide 57% of the illegally possessed guns. If Congressman Gingrey thinks that this epitomizes a responsible gun business does he think the other 99% are too strict?
Another part of this complaint that was particularly interesting:
The ATF is in possession of additional evidence demonstrating that guns sold by the Defendants were recovered both in the hands of individuals with no lawful right to possess a gun and in connection with a variety of violent crimes in New York City between November 2001 and May 2006. ATF has taken the position that recent legislation forbids it from providing this information to the City for the purposes of this lawsuit.
Hmm.
