Cops sue gun store

The shop and its principals have a pretty long history of trouble with ATF.

  • This 2011 story mentions that Badger Guns surrendered its license:
    A West Milwaukee gun shop that sold firearms used to wound Milwaukee police officers and has been a top seller of crime guns is surrendering its license.

    But guns will likely continue to be sold from the location now occupied by Badger Guns on S. 43rd St., on the border with Milwaukee.

    Details of that new gun-dealing operation are not clear, but one possibility is that the brother of the current owner will pull a fresh license and continue an operation with a new name - legal under laws written by Congress that can protect stores that have violations.

    Badger Guns owner Adam Allan said Tuesday he is giving up his license after losing a yearlong battle with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to renew it....
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  • And this 2010 letter from Congress Member Gwen Moore suggests that the principals of Badger Guns (and its apparently related companies) were making full use of their available, legal tricks to stay in business:
    ...On January 3rd the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on the current licensure status of a gun dealership in my district. In 2006, federal investigators with ATF recommended that the gun dealership license for Badger Outdoors be revoked. Unfortunately, before the process was completed, the owner gave up the store and opened a property management business. His co-owner’s 28 year-old son and former Badger Outdoor employee, Adam Allan, became the business’s new owner despite his lack of business experience. Mr. Allan then took out a new dealership license under the name Badger Guns. He now pays rent to the store’s first owner, and employs his father and former boss as a staffer at Badger Guns.

    Even though the same two principals remain involved in the day-to-day operations of Badger Guns, the revocation process has been halted because ATF claims it cannot use the violations of Badger Outdoors in a case against Badger Guns....
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  • According to this 2012 story:
    Federal regulators found numerous serious violations at Badger Guns, prompting them to take the rare step of revoking the gun store's license last year, newly released documents show....
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  • Some of the checkered history of the shop is laid out in this recent story:
    Badger Guns was cited for 130 violations of federal gun regulations in the nearly two years before it sold a handgun used to wound two Milwaukee police officers, but the shop owner testified Friday he made no major changes as a result of the violations....
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Badger Outdoors was a rogue outfit that should have been shut down years before this incident. No one who was ever associated with the original Badger management should be allowed to have an FFL.
 
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Of course that depends on (1) exactly what the law is in Wisconsin; (2) exactly what took place during each of those sales; (3) exactly what evidence the plaintiff's have; and (4) exactly what kind of defense the defendants put on.
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Does it really matter if the cops can win the lawsuit? How much is it going to cost the gun store to defend such a lawsuit? These kinds of lawsuits can put a small gun store out of business.
 
This lawsuit seemed to really be about a gun store that's been shut down numerous times for violations and used shady practices to stay open. This isn't about a couple of cops who are suing a shop that did everything the right way and something slipped through the cracks. They knew that they weren't following the law and instead of fixing the issues, they just reopened under a new name and made someone else at the store the owner "this time".
 
This is one of those cases where I deplore the principle used, and its application, but I cannot say I am 100% unhappy with the outcome. 99% I think is honest.

The 1% is that Badger Guns is no longer in business. 99% unhappy with how they were forced out of business.

We have a natural inclination to see gun dealers as innocent folks, being unfairly targeted, for (we assume) innocent unintentional violations of the overly complex laws governing the gun business.

Most of the time, that appears to be true. But not always. Despite our hopes, there are people legally dealing guns that are not innocently violating minor regulations, but are essentially ignoring as much as they can to make a buck, and who KEEP doing it until they finally get caught and shut down.

In THIS case, we have a clear pattern of "questionable" behavior.

The ATF recommended Badger Outdoors have their license pulled. Before the process was completed, Badger Outdoors went away. Replaced by Badger Guns, with a new name on the license. The new business "owner" was the son of the previous owner.

So, they can claim that "oh no, we aren't the old guys, we're different guys, and deserve a clean start". It may be fiction, but it is a LEGAL fiction, and does apply in law.

NOW, they have apparently done it again, Badger Guns is gone, and Brew City guns is in the same location, so a new business name and a new name on the license (I wonder if it is another son, or a brother in law, perhaps?), so they get a clean slate to start fresh.

It certainly appears that these guys, when they get caught (but not convicted) simply do a shell game shuffle with who's name is on the license, Change the sign out front and go on with their business.

And their business of selling to people who are not legally qualified to buy is apparently pretty good.

One police spokesman told the press that they had 500 guns, recovered from crime scenes, that traced directly to Badger Guns.

They said Badger Guns was the #1 supplier of "crime guns" in the country. (which I take as meaning no other single source had as many guns seized in crimes traced back to them, by the numbers)

500 is not a small number. And two businesses, in a row, one after the other, operated by the same group of people, with hundreds of crime guns and ATF violations linked to them goes beyond what I accept as coincidence.

Now there is a third business in that location, (probably with the same people involved as the first two?)

I doubt the injured cops will see much, if any of the $6 million judgment. Badger Guns doesn't exist any more, so, who's going to pay???

They guy who shot the cops got a bunch of years for attempted murder. The guy who bought the gun that shot the cops got 2 years for being a strawman.

My opinion is that something should have happened to the guy(s) at Badger guns, like the ATF shutting them down and prosecuting ACTUAL violations of LAW. I do not think it right they should be forced to pay damages to the injured cops. Nor do I think it right that the individuals with a pattern of flouting the law should be able to go on business as usual because they changed the name on the store and got a new license.

This is a case where apparently the jury saw only 2 injured cops (one with permanent brain damage), a "big business" with "deep pockets", and felt they should pay.

Contrast this with the case where Brady Campaign employees sued gun dealers over one of the mass shootings, and LOST before it went to a jury (I believe the judge tossed it out) and were ordered to pay the gun dealers legal costs, a couple hundred thousand dollars.
 
44 AMP said:
...This is a case where apparently the jury saw only 2 injured cops (one with permanent brain damage), a "big business" with "deep pockets", and felt they should pay.....
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I wouldn't be too sure of that.

The trial started on 30 September, and the case went to the jury on or about 12 October. During that time the jurors heard the testimony of witnesses, saw physical and documentary evidence introduced, listened to the arguments of counsel, and were instructed in the applicable law by the judge. (The instructions in the law given the jury by the judge were hashed out among the judge and counsel first.)

The trial transcript in which all of that has been recorded, including copies of documentary evidence, no doubt runs several thousand pages. The jury made its decision on all that information.

In contrast, we've seen here only a few pages of news reports.

So the jury had a huge amount of information on which to base its decision. We don't have all that information. The jury knows a whole lot more about what went on and what the facts and law are than we do. And with all of that information, which we don't have, the jury found the gun shop liable.

Now if the gun shop believes that legal errors were made at trial, with regard to the evidence allowed to be presented, the arguments made by the plaintiff and or the instructions given the jury about the applicable law, the gun shop can appeal.

44 AMP said:
...Contrast this with the case where Brady Campaign employees sued gun dealers over one of the mass shootings, and LOST before it went to a jury (I believe the judge tossed it out) and were ordered to pay the gun dealers legal costs, a couple hundred thousand dollars.
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And that's a good illustration of how different facts can and do produce different results.

In Lucky Gunner we had a dealer doing things right and therefore having important, legal protections. Here we apparently had enough evidence of chicanery to get the dealer outside those legal protections and the question to a jury.
 
I obviously don't know all the facts but, from the reports I've seen, I can see why the jury found the gun store liable. The biggest downside to the jury's verdict is that it might encourage other, less meritorious, lawsuits.
 
Badger Outdoors was a rogue outfit that should have been shut down years before this incident. No one who was ever associated with the original Badger management should be allowed to have an FFL.
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Seems like the cops should have sued the BATFE for allowing Badger et seq. to continue selling firearms.
 
I don't understand why there were no criminal charges brought if they were reularly selling to those who they knew cold not legally purchase a firearm.

To me, this is further proof the whole system we have is a joke.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
Seems like the cops should have sued the BATFE for allowing Badger et seq. to continue selling firearms.
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johnwilliamson062 said:
I don't understand why there were no criminal charges brought if they were reularly selling to those who they knew cold not legally purchase a firearm.
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So we're never satisfied. Either ATF is a "jackbooted thug" or a "wimp."

The reality is that these are very hard cases to make -- especially with all the due process and other legal protections available to the subject. Sometimes the best that's reasonably possible is to try to keep things at bay a skirmish at a time.

Real life is not like a "cops-and-robbers" TV show.
 
Frank Ettin has covered this topic pretty well. This case was a perfect storm for a civil lawsuit against a gun dealer. I do not view this case as any kind of "win" for the gun control lobby. In fact, it may very well be a "win" for the pro-gun lobby for the reason that someone is being held accountable for the requirements of the laws that are on the books, which the pro-gun lobby should applaud.

Note that the person filling out the form initially checked "no" in response to the strawman purchase question, and the salesman ultimately got him to strike it out and check "yes", who in court attempted to explain that away by saying the buyer "had trouble with the written word". He might as well have testified that there were red flags, flashing lights, and sirens going off, but he went through the sale anyway because for Badger, red flags, flashing lights, and sirens going off during a gun sale is always just a drill. That seems to be the cumulative impression of the testimonial and documentary evidence presented in the trial.
 
I don't understand why there were no criminal charges brought if they were reularly selling to those who they knew cold not legally purchase a firearm.
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For one thing, this was a civil trial in which the standard of proof was "preponderance of the evidence," not "proof beyond a reasonable doubt." Proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the seller knew the transaction was a straw purchase is a much higher bar to clear than proving a 51% chance that the seller knew.
 
Frank nails it well as is usual.

He is entirely correct, and I do understand that there is always more involved than what we see in the press, of either side. And, are we to discuss what actually happened in any given case we should look at everything the jury does. as well.

But there is another thing we discuss, and more commonly, and that it the perception of cases, based on what we get from the medias.

I was an adult when I lived through the Clinton years, read numerous reports of the ATF "run amok", and then there came Ruby Ridge, and then Waco.

Now, decades later we have a case where appears to have been a "wimp" for NOT being "jackbooted thugs", appears to not be trying to prosecute these "obviously" shady dealers, when what they might have been doing (one would hope) was actually following the letter of the law.

As Frank points out, real life isn't like the cop shows. Quite often, when we hear about the ATF taking out a dealer, we hear about how the dealer had numerous transgressions, over several years. And we wonder, WHY didn't they bust them for the first one, or 3? Why did they wait until there were dozens (sometimes hundreds) of counts of charges before they (ATF) acted??

It may be the reality is that they didn't act until they were sure they had something that would stick, for a solid conviction, but the impression we get is that they wait because they don't care.

It's probably not right, certainly not right to paint them all with the same broad brush, but what we hear, time after time, is the Fed busting some little guy for ONE isolated thing, and not touching big "bad" dealers even with hundreds of possible charges pending. This doesn't help the impression we get of them at all.

While I am glad to see these bad apples shut down, I think that leaving it to a jury to decide they were guilty of "reckless marketing", when the Fed had not shut them down for actual violations of law, yet, is the wrong way to go about it, and thinking its a win, for either side is failing to recognize the dangerous precedent being set.
 
I was an adult when I lived through the Clinton years, read numerous reports of the ATF "run amok", and then there came Ruby Ridge, and then Waco.
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Ruby Ridge happened on the watch of Bush I.
 
I recall vividly Clinton saying on TV when Waco happened, "Let that be a lesson to all Americans!"

If that wasn't a threat, I never heard one.
 
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