I’ve been in this gun blogging biz for some five years. I’ve seen the antis duck and dive, pursuing and abandoning a range of strategies to advance the cause of civilian disarmament. Most recently, they’re pursuing gun control as a “health issue.” In this case, what’s old is new again. Former TTAG debater Elliott Fineman [above] wants the city of Niles, Illinois to force a proposed gun store/range to sign up to the abandoned, deeply unconstitutional Brady Center National Gun Dealer Code of Conduct – or else! “This code has been developed to address the 5% of rogue gun dealers that provide 90% of the crime guns in the United States,” Fineman opines at journal-topics.com. Elliott ain’t afraid to name names . . .
A May 2014 report by the City of Chicago, with technical data assistance from the University of Chicago Crime Lab, revealed that more than 3,000 guns — or nearly 20% of all guns recovered from crime scenes in Chicago between 2009 and 2013 — were sold by just three of the state’s more than 2,000 gun dealers and one in nearby Indiana. These “rogue” gun dealers were Chuck’s in Riverdale, Midwest Sporting Goods in Lyons, Shore Galleries in Lincolnwood, and Westforth Sports in Gary, IN. The average number of guns traced back to other Illinois gun stores was three.
As you well know, the Vice President and Retail Operations General Manager of the gun store you have authorized for the village is going to be Michael Darga, who managed Shore Galleries, one of the rogue gun stores in Illinois, for a considerable number of years.
Why do anti-gun writers, editors and publishers always seem to forget to link to their source material? While more and more mainstream media websites are linking to gun control bills in their stories, most do not. It’s almost as if the antis don’t want readers to think for themselves.
Also, “rogue gun dealers” my toches. All of the gun dealers named are legal businesses selling legal products legally. They are no more responsible for what their purchasers do with their firearms than car dealers are responsible for what people do with the cars they purchase (drunk driving, manslaughter, etc.). If they were truly “rogue”, how long would the ATF let them continue to do business?
Given this factual information, the Niles trustees would be well advised to require the owners of the gun store and shooting range to sign the Brady Dealer Code of Conduct as a prerequisite for issuing an operating license. Failure to do could be considered a “willful and wanton” breach of the Illinois Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act. [link] The act states that such a breach is not protected and this exposes each of you to personal liability when the predictable (foreseeable) gun violence takes place as a consequence of your having granted the special use permit.
Is that a threat or a promise? A promise!
In the event that the gun store and shooting range does not sign the Brady Dealer Code of Conduct by April 1, 2015, [ED: didn’t happen] we will reserve our right to sue for an injunction banning the opening of the gun store. Please confirm that as a prerequisite to your issuing an operating license to the gun store, you are going to require the owners to sign the Brady Dealer Code of Conduct by April 1, 2015, and report back to us whether they have done so.
Eliott Fineman lost his son to a deranged killer in 2006. Unfortunately, he also lost his ability to connect cause and effect, and the importance of the Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. We commiserate with his loss but oppose his anti-gun jihad as a misplaced efforts to reduce the carnage we deplore.