Last man standing:
Defiant Georgia gun dealer facing Bloomberg in court
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Other firearms dealers targeted by the questionable private gun “sting” operation mounted by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have folded against the financial pressure, and one has even announced she will close her doors next month.
But Jay Wallace, president of Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, GA, is standing firm against what he insists is a false accusation, combined with a deliberate smearing of his reputation. On May 27, in a New York federal court in front of Judge Jack Weinberg, Wallace will defend his honor against the Goliath that is the anti-gun Big Apple mayor and his legal staff.
Wallace is looking forward to the opportunity to vindicate himself.
“It’s time that the industry know what’s going on with this case,” Wallace said in an interview with Gun Week. “My position is that I’ve done nothing wrong…I can prove that I’ve done nothing wrong.”
His New York attorney, John Renzuli, could not agree more.
“We’re going to try our case,” Renzuli said, “and show that the basis for this lawsuit is, in fact, baseless. They (attorneys for the city) should have done their homework before they went out and said some pretty bad things about Jay and his business.”
Cost of Defense
Wallace is bolstered by the fact that he has gotten small contributions from people all over the country, and even from some servicemen and women overseas, to help fight this case, but he is particularly fond of the Second Amendment Foundation, which has contributed several thousand dollars to his defense, and is “the number one contributor.” The National Rifle Association has also kicked in $1,000, and he has gotten some help from the industry, but it may be small in comparison to what Bloomberg and the city may have spent to push this case.
Contributions are still being accepted at: Bloombergfightbackfund.com.
The issue that frustrates Wallace the most is that, in his opinion, none of this would have been necessary, had only Bloomberg’s so-called “private investigators” approached him up front, explained what they felt were alleged shortcomings with his business practices, and then worked with him.
“I would have asked ‘what is the problem?’ and then I would have had open discussions with them,” Wallace stated, “and they would have discovered we do things quite well in our store.”
But instead of cooperation, Wallace said, Bloomberg wanted headlines.
Renzuli told Gun Week that Bloomberg’s office used raw gun trace data obtained from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to make assumptions that simply are not accurate.
This trace data is retained by ATF for use in criminal investigations, but it does not reflect that every gun being traced was involved in the commission of a crime. Even the ATF has disavowed the use of raw data.
The Department of Justice last year warned Bloomberg’s office against trying anything like his “gun stings” in the future. Bloomberg went around law enforcement, hired private investigators (one of whom has since been murdered by her mother’s boyfriend) and conducted what critics have branded a “vigilante operation.” The case so infuriated ATF that the agency investigated to determine whether Bloomberg committed a crime, and ATF sources did acknowledge that the Bloomberg operation jeopardized on-going criminal investigations.
Firing back, Bloomberg criticized ATF for being “asleep at the wheel” in terms of enforcement against alleged “rogue” gun dealers from whose shops firearms somehow wind up in New York.
When the smoke cleared, the Justice Department announced that there was insufficient evidence to prove that any of the gun dealers sued by Bloomberg had committed a prosecutable crime. But the department warned Bloomberg that such “stings” might run afoul of federal law.
Weak Case?
According to Renzuli, the case against his client has some pretty weak spots, not the least of which is the absence of a fully-recorded transaction in the store. By some remarkable coincidence, the attorney said, both recordings made during the transaction at Adventure Outdoor were hampered by malfunctions. This apparently did not happen at any of the other stores visited by Bloomberg’s investigators.
There appears to be ample reason for his suspicions. The attorney told Gun Week that during a 2007 ATF compliance audit, Adventure Outdoors had essentially “a clean bill of health.” There was a single infraction, apparently having to do with stapling a National Instant Check System denial form to a Federal Form 4473 that had been filled out by the denied customer.
Wallace said that he has a good record of cooperating with ATF, and he believes regulating gun stores is the job of that agency, not the mayor of New York, a jurisdiction more than a thousand miles away in another state.
“We’ve set up our business to be 100% ATF compliant and then some,” he said.
There might be a bit of regulation coming at Bloomberg. Wallace has also retained former US Congressman Bob Barr to represent him in a counter-lawsuit against Bloomberg, a lawsuit that will be tried in Georgia despite Bloomberg’s best efforts to get it quashed or moved to New York.
Having watched all of the other defendant gun shops in Bloomberg’s e lawsuit ultimately fold, Wallace feels the burden of being the only retailer remaining so he is bearing the entire financial burden with the support he’s gotten.
“I am 100% committed,” he said. “I know how I’ve run my business. I am proud of the way I run my business.”
Poster's Note:
What with 4,000,000 give or take menbers, I would think that the NRA could afford just a bit more than the $1000 mentioned. As for "the industry", I assume that that references the firearms industry, ditto.
Defiant Georgia gun dealer facing Bloomberg in court
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Other firearms dealers targeted by the questionable private gun “sting” operation mounted by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have folded against the financial pressure, and one has even announced she will close her doors next month.
But Jay Wallace, president of Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, GA, is standing firm against what he insists is a false accusation, combined with a deliberate smearing of his reputation. On May 27, in a New York federal court in front of Judge Jack Weinberg, Wallace will defend his honor against the Goliath that is the anti-gun Big Apple mayor and his legal staff.
Wallace is looking forward to the opportunity to vindicate himself.
“It’s time that the industry know what’s going on with this case,” Wallace said in an interview with Gun Week. “My position is that I’ve done nothing wrong…I can prove that I’ve done nothing wrong.”
His New York attorney, John Renzuli, could not agree more.
“We’re going to try our case,” Renzuli said, “and show that the basis for this lawsuit is, in fact, baseless. They (attorneys for the city) should have done their homework before they went out and said some pretty bad things about Jay and his business.”
Cost of Defense
Wallace is bolstered by the fact that he has gotten small contributions from people all over the country, and even from some servicemen and women overseas, to help fight this case, but he is particularly fond of the Second Amendment Foundation, which has contributed several thousand dollars to his defense, and is “the number one contributor.” The National Rifle Association has also kicked in $1,000, and he has gotten some help from the industry, but it may be small in comparison to what Bloomberg and the city may have spent to push this case.
Contributions are still being accepted at: Bloombergfightbackfund.com.
The issue that frustrates Wallace the most is that, in his opinion, none of this would have been necessary, had only Bloomberg’s so-called “private investigators” approached him up front, explained what they felt were alleged shortcomings with his business practices, and then worked with him.
“I would have asked ‘what is the problem?’ and then I would have had open discussions with them,” Wallace stated, “and they would have discovered we do things quite well in our store.”
But instead of cooperation, Wallace said, Bloomberg wanted headlines.
Renzuli told Gun Week that Bloomberg’s office used raw gun trace data obtained from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to make assumptions that simply are not accurate.
This trace data is retained by ATF for use in criminal investigations, but it does not reflect that every gun being traced was involved in the commission of a crime. Even the ATF has disavowed the use of raw data.
The Department of Justice last year warned Bloomberg’s office against trying anything like his “gun stings” in the future. Bloomberg went around law enforcement, hired private investigators (one of whom has since been murdered by her mother’s boyfriend) and conducted what critics have branded a “vigilante operation.” The case so infuriated ATF that the agency investigated to determine whether Bloomberg committed a crime, and ATF sources did acknowledge that the Bloomberg operation jeopardized on-going criminal investigations.
Firing back, Bloomberg criticized ATF for being “asleep at the wheel” in terms of enforcement against alleged “rogue” gun dealers from whose shops firearms somehow wind up in New York.
When the smoke cleared, the Justice Department announced that there was insufficient evidence to prove that any of the gun dealers sued by Bloomberg had committed a prosecutable crime. But the department warned Bloomberg that such “stings” might run afoul of federal law.
Weak Case?
According to Renzuli, the case against his client has some pretty weak spots, not the least of which is the absence of a fully-recorded transaction in the store. By some remarkable coincidence, the attorney said, both recordings made during the transaction at Adventure Outdoor were hampered by malfunctions. This apparently did not happen at any of the other stores visited by Bloomberg’s investigators.
There appears to be ample reason for his suspicions. The attorney told Gun Week that during a 2007 ATF compliance audit, Adventure Outdoors had essentially “a clean bill of health.” There was a single infraction, apparently having to do with stapling a National Instant Check System denial form to a Federal Form 4473 that had been filled out by the denied customer.
Wallace said that he has a good record of cooperating with ATF, and he believes regulating gun stores is the job of that agency, not the mayor of New York, a jurisdiction more than a thousand miles away in another state.
“We’ve set up our business to be 100% ATF compliant and then some,” he said.
There might be a bit of regulation coming at Bloomberg. Wallace has also retained former US Congressman Bob Barr to represent him in a counter-lawsuit against Bloomberg, a lawsuit that will be tried in Georgia despite Bloomberg’s best efforts to get it quashed or moved to New York.
Having watched all of the other defendant gun shops in Bloomberg’s e lawsuit ultimately fold, Wallace feels the burden of being the only retailer remaining so he is bearing the entire financial burden with the support he’s gotten.
“I am 100% committed,” he said. “I know how I’ve run my business. I am proud of the way I run my business.”
Poster's Note:
What with 4,000,000 give or take menbers, I would think that the NRA could afford just a bit more than the $1000 mentioned. As for "the industry", I assume that that references the firearms industry, ditto.