Three gun shops that sold nearly three dozen firearms to a man who trafficked the weapons in and around Washington, D.C., are facing a new lawsuit jointly filed Tuesday by attorneys general for Maryland and the nation’s capital.
At least nine of those guns have now been found at crime scene and or with people wanted on warrants for violent offenses, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said. Many of the others are still unaccounted for.
“Our city is being flooded with illegal weapons,” he said. “All three of these stores ignored the red flags.”
The stores are accused of failing to respond to warning signs that the guns would be sold to other people, including bulk purchasing and repetitive purchases, known as straw purchasing, according to the lawsuit filed with the gun safety group Everytown Law.
and repetitive purchases, known as straw purchasing
I am not even close to US gun culture, but isn’t straw purchasing when someone sends someone else to go in the store and do the background check to get the gun?
In the United States, a straw purchaser of a firearm at a federally licensed firearm dealership who lies about the identity of the ultimate possessor of the gun can be charged with making false statements on a federal Firearms Transaction Record, which is a felony. Note that in this case, purchasing the item for another person is ipso facto illegal, regardless of that person’s status as a legal possessor.
I guess if you’re buying up a lot of guns with the intent to resell/distribute them, that would count as straw purchasing.
Oh, so the traffickers are the strawman in this case, got it.
The guy who actually did all the trafficking, Demetrius Minor, got just 18 months in prison. This lawsuit is nothing more than political theater.
Or it’s to hold businesses accountable for their actions.
