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Lucky Gunner's warehouse unmasked! (courtesy stltoday.com)

How the Aurora shooter got his bullets, stltoday.com‘s headline proclaims. At the risk of Rosebudding your sled, James Holmes bought ammo from LuckyGunner. Legally. Or, as Todd C. Frankel puts it, “The answer appeared to be an online company in St. Louis, a detail widely reported one year ago . . . The trail leads not to St. Louis but to Knoxville, Tenn., and on to Atlanta, to a secretive 4-year-old company [Lucky Gunner] considered to be among the nation’s top online ammunition dealers. Its founders — a pair of former real estate developers — sell bullets using far-flung P.O. boxes, different corporate identities . . . By last summer, these entrepreneurs stood perfectly positioned to close on a quick, legal sale to a deranged killer.” Wait. What? It gets worse . . .

The story of how the Aurora gunman got his 170 pounds of ammo — a transaction that received far less attention than how he obtained his firearms — is a journey into the divisive debate over gun violence, about how guns and ammo flow through the nation and the companies that profit along the way.

Each shooting briefly revives talk about banning certain guns or magazines while another often common feature goes overlooked: the ammo stockpiles. In Newtown, Conn., authorities are looking into how the gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School acquired more than 1,600 bullets. A thwarted plan by a former student to shoot up the University of Central Florida in Orlando earlier this year led police to 1,000 rounds of ammunition. And then there’s the 6,000 rounds in Aurora.

It wasn’t always possible for someone to buy so many bullets so quickly, with so little scrutiny. And it wasn’t always so difficult to track where those bullets came from.

Call it the Chris Rock School of gun control. Gun owners aren’t dangerous! Guns aren’t dangerous! Bullets are dangerous! Control the bullets and you control “gun violence.”

The idea of “bullet control” is utterly preposterous—unless you’re a Constitution-defying statist looking for a back door method to track, control and ultimately disarm civilians. Which is why both New York and Connecticut responded the Newtown spree-killing by requiring ammo sales registration. I digress.

But not as much as Mr. Frankel, who sleuths through the South looking for the fountain of ammo. And eventually finds it in Atlanta, where an extremely stealthy Lucky Gunner hides their corporate HQ. Or warehouse. Or something.

On the way there Frankel manages to track down Walls of the City rampart manner Linoge, who decries the once-beloved ammo provider for marketing products under several brand names. Which is almost as bad as legally selling ammo over the internet, if not worse. And now . . . guns!

Go back to September, two months after the Aurora shooting. That month LuckyGunner received some good news. It was granted a federal license to sell firearms by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It’s now a licensed gun dealer. It’s not clear what LuckyGunner or any of its affiliated companies plan to do with these new powers. But the federal license provides a business address for LuckyGunner. It’s not in St. Louis. Or Knoxville. It’s at that warehouse in Atlanta.

Gun sales! Over the Internet (shipped to licensed gun dealers, subject to NICS clearance)! From an unmarked warehouse in The City Too Busy To Hate! The next thing, you’ll be telling me that people are exercising their First Amendment protected right to free speech by selling books via the internet! Legally!

The mind boggles.

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83 COMMENTS

  1. I want to know where he got his hands on gasoline for his car. If he couldn’t have driven there none of this would have happened!

    • Or his FOOD! Everyone always focuses on the guns, ammo, gasoline, air and pavement that allowed the gunman to do his dastardly deed! I think it’s about time we focused on the REAL culprit! Was it KFC? Burger King?! The never-to-be-sufficiently-damned McDonalds??!! WHO!? It’s the food ILLUMINATI!! They’re the ones doing this! Where’s Alex Jones on th…
      Sorry. I’ll stop now. /sarc off/ and all that.

      • Yet the school where he got his education in madness is not to blame? I put the problem squarely in the Assault Medical Education he was getting. It takes only an edubacated person with knowledge of the human anatomy to use his high capacity clips to hit the most vulnerable parts of the human body.

        The problem has been identified. Pass a bill. Go on thinking you fixed something. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…..

    • In an unrelated, but shocking revelation, it has been discovered by some that there is porn on the internet.

    • Food for thought; a rarely discussed aspect of how he had the cash to pay for his guns and ammo is somewhat pertinent to the conversation. The short answer is he got his money from us taxpayers. Yup, he used his federal financial aid to make his purchases. Now, I don’t want to get into the merits (or lack there of) of financial aid and how it’s doled out, but for a group of people (grabbers) that are always looking to blame someone other than those responsible for their crimes, where’s the outrage to stop student loans and pell grants? “If it will save just one life” and all.

      • Finally, an interesting and novel point.

        If the antis want to take this argument to its logical extreme, then they must focus on the source of funds used to obtain all of the “evil” items. After all, without funds, there would have been no purchases, and no crimes.

        Therefore, according to their logic, the college financial aid system should be thoroughly investigated with an eye towards bringing RICO charges for supplying the Aurora asshat with that money.

        {/sarc}

        • The best thing about this line of thinking is antis will get a chance to say: ‘…but the money that was used to buy the ammo or guns did not do anything wrong on its own,we shouldn’t blame that.’

          And then we get to say ‘do you think the gun and bullets shot people on their own?’

          Of course the point will be lost on them.

        • Any restriction on the use of federal student loan funds would decimate the high-end stereo market, throwing the US back into recession. (And: Was Fairbairn an interesting read?)

      • NYC2 – Here’s a different point, no one has mentioned. By the time Holmes (“alleged shooter”) received his “federal loan”, he had already resigned from the college!! Early videos and sound bytes from news copter and police indicate police “were pursuing another vehicle and unidentified individuals” from that theater complex. Just as, in Sandy Hook, early videos and sound bytes showed law enforcement pursuing two other individuals through the woods, behind the school and a police officer saying “I got one proned out”! Even more strange; bureau of vital statistics state Adam Lanza “died, Dec. 13, 2012” – -the day “before” the shooting!! Again, those videos and sound bytes have disappeared?? Don’t you find that a “bit” strange? Both these young men were under psychiatric care, taking psychotropic (mind control) medications! Both fathers, of these young men, were “scheduled to testify before the US Senate” regarding the LIBOR (London interbank offered rate) scandal. Too many coincidences and similarities?? You bet; work backward and start connecting the dots – -after Sandy Hook, it didn’t take o’fraud 24 hours to start jumping up and down about gun control (again). Do you remember Fast and Furious? How about the Benghazi (kidnap plot) terror attack?? Are you beginning to form a picture? Many years ago, FDR said “In politics, there are no accidents. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way!” He knew exactly what he was talking about; he was a progressive, liberal, socialist (commie) one-world-order democrat!

      • I was gonna. But their prices before shipping cost more than my lgs after taxes. Hopefully their prices go back down soon. Love their videos on the site though.

    • Are you kidding me?! I wanna know where he bought his pants and shirt! Even crazy demented killers simply don’t go out naked or wearing only underwear! They have no place to hide their mean guns! Well… I mean… depends… maybe they take Holder and O’Bummer and the likes of ’em and stick them guns up them a$$e$ so no one get’s ’em!?… Just sayin’…

    • They’d not stupid; they’re deceitful, cunning, persistent masters at manipulating public opinion to their own ends. Democrats are pro’s at marketing, probably receiving eager guidance from their friends in the entertainment industry, and media marketers.

      “Affordable Care Act” anyone?

        • I somewhat agree, but in reality, a lot of these gun grabbers are totally ignorant and stupid when it comes to guns. The rest are not, and they are worse.

    • I think that comment pretty much sums it up. And like they say you can fix a lot of things but you can’t fix STUPID.

    • Those stupid people are what keeps us looking brilliant.

      WE need them, if for no other reason.

      Besides, they provide the humor ….

  2. Great now that 223 that you said was in stock yesterday will be gone for the foreseeable future from lucky gunner.

  3. “It wasn’t always possible for someone to buy so many bullets so quickly, with so little scrutiny. And it wasn’t always so difficult to track where those bullets came from.”

    When was this? I may be too young to remember, but hasn’t ammo always been easy to buy?

    • BBJ, after the 68 GCA we had to show ID and have our info entered in ledgers (this was pre internet days) every time we bought ammo. Had to be 18 for rifle and shotgun and rimfire ammo and 21 for pistol ammo. The ledgers had to be kept for the cops incase they needed the info to investigate a crime. This nonsense went on for a number of years. The requirement was dropped after congress found out that in the years that the ledgers had been maintained not one crime was solved based on their info.

  4. “…a secretive 4-year-old company…”
    “…considered to be among the nation’s top online ammunition dealers…”

    These things seem mutually exclusive to me.

    From the article: ” Its founders … sell bullets using far-flung P.O. boxes, different corporate identities and online marketing tactics that have offended even some firearm enthusiasts.”

    I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about LuckyGunner. Who was offended, other than other online ammo retailers that were in competition with them?

    • OK, I missed the part about Linoge. I like the guy, sort of, but sometimes he really does seem like a cantankerous old goat who lives to bitch about stuff.

      • Yeah when I first saw this article on SayUncle I checked out Linoge’s website and found the article he wrote. He just really didn’t like the fact that luckygunner might have had 4 different websites all selling the same products because of SEO.

        I personally think its just another aspect of online business and the new marketplace we live in. I mean even if it happened in the real world, not online, if the company that owned Wal-Mart opened up new stores that sold the exact same things Wal-Mart sold for the exact same prices, is it really that big of deal? They aren’t price fixing, just selling the same products under a different name.

        Here is the link to Linoge’s post on it. This article makes it sound like he meant selling guns was bad. In truth from what I can tell he just doesn’t like the fact that they are running 4 different websites all at once. http://www.wallsofthecity.net/2011/07/online-ammunition-retailers-a-hypothesis.html

        • I thought the complaint was that they *were* selling under different prices. Not that I think that is a valid complaint — companies offer different prices to different markets all the time under the same name!

        • “if the company that owned Wal-Mart opened up new stores that sold the exact same things Wal-Mart sold for the exact same prices, is it really that big of deal?”

          You mean like Sam’s Club? Or whatever their neighborhood market / grocery store chain was called? Yeah, no big deal.

          But, of course, we all know that guns, ammo and the companies that sell them are all nefarious, so it’s just a matter of digging until you unearth the “nefariousness,” right? 🙂

  5. I notice they make a big deal about the number of rounds each killer bought, but completely leave out how many rounds they fired. If I remember correctly, the Sandy Hook shooter fired 153 rounds, and the Aurora shooter less than a hundred. The Central Florida student, of course, only fired one round.

    So how is clamping down on ammunition going to stop them again?

    • Exactly. They may have bought thousands, but each used a few boxes worth.

      The other thing about these guys is they’re nothing if not patient. If it takes several purchases spread over several weeks to get the ammo, then okay. It’s not like they’re in a hurry or we’re suddenly going to implement effective defenses any time soon.

    • Also carrying around 170 pounds of ammo (mentioned in the “article”) would certainly slow down a guy, both in heft and bulk

  6. The usual hypocritical crap from gun control folks. They prattle on about how gun owners should be well-practiced in order to be safe. It requires ammo to stay in practice, but this fact is lost on someone who probably thinks “practice” means putting a couple holes in a target and going home.

    They also seem to be ignorant of the entire act of recreational shooting. “Why would someone enjoy shooting a GUN? It’s LOUD and DANGEROUS.” They don’t even know how much ammo can be used in a couple hours at the range. I shot a whole 500rd case of 7.62×39 one day in just a couple hours, back when it was cheap.

    The loose implication is that gun owners make so much noise about owning guns for self defense, that we should only have enough ammo on hand at any given time to shoot one intruder, or shoot one target, and anything more suggests some sort of malicious intent or mental instability.

    So which is it? Do you want us to have ammo, stay in practice, and stay prepared for an emergency? Or do we have to put up with a government-mandated monthly allotment of ammo, the quantity of which will be determined by some hapless bureaucrat?

    • The want us to obediently turn in all our guns AND ammo, simple as that.

      They want us to be willing conformists to their way of thinking; then on to the next freedom to be dealt with, natural, God given or otherwise.

  7. I guess it’s time to start reloading.
    Although I haven’t found Lucky Gunners pricing to be that favorable compared to what I buy locally.

  8. Could you guys do an article about what to do in the aftermath of an active shooter situation (ie after you’ve killed the bad guy). Detail what to do so u don’t get shot by a cop or CCW holder and so u don’t shoot another CCW holder.

      • Exactly right, Peter. Short article, but covers all the bases. Exactly what was covered in the CCW course I took.

      • Ok thanks. I thought about it a bit and that’s what I came up with. Sorta. 1:stop threat 2:check around you to make sure there are no other threats. 3: put gun down but keep it close in case he’s not dead. 4:call authorities.

  9. Man, they’d freak out from the ~3000 .22lr sitting in my room that I’ve acquired over the last couple of months…

  10. Good Lord. I’ve got 880 rounds for a cosmoline queen Mosin that lays on my workbench in about 30 pieces and 150 rounds of 9mm, the boxes of which will possibly rot away before Commissar Cuomo grants me permission to possess my own property. It looks like I’m past the OMG 1000 round limit.

    I know folks who, if they tried to gather it all in one place, would overlook 5000 rounds and not even know it.

    Two (2) bricks of .22 would have Frankel et al producing brown posterior bricks themselves.

    I’m sure there is a head-shaking emoticon somewhere.

  11. It’s all propaganda aimed at the No-info-voter
    PS I worked at the LGS that sold Sirhan Sirhan the 2 Bx’s of 22 mini-mag ammo, I guess that makes me an assasian

  12. Excellent hard hitting exposé of the shady Internet ammunition business! I can’t believe the company is owned by guys that used to sell, (gasp) real estate! And they have offices and warehouses in different cities. What are they trying to hide?

  13. Ammunition stockpiles is irrelevant to gun violence. You can’t carry that much ammunition on your person. To conduct a mass shooting, all one needs is 50 to 100 rounds. All this obsessing over ammunition stockpiles is making a mountain out of a molehill.

  14. This pseudo-journalist should have to license and register his keyboard and limited to 100 words per week.

    ***Sarcasm Warning***

    • And the ammo prices, lately. They’ve obviously resorted to buying whatever they can get their hands on, possibly from some of the same vendors I see on gunbot.net, and marking it up from there. $30+ for 50 rounds of 40SW? Nooooo thanks.

  15. “In Newtown, Conn., authorities are looking into how the gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School acquired more than 1,600 bullets.”

    He killed his mom and took them, didn’t he? Mystery solved.

  16. Phew. Thanks Todd. I so needed your help deciding where to buy.

    Lemme see if I got it: Kook shoots gun. Bullets go in gun. Bullets come from online store. Evillll real estate developer. SEO. Multiple outlets. Evil Capitalists.

    Jeez, I read about these guys from Instapundit two years ago, UT students of his. Todd, did you go to Aurora, or miss any appointments with your Dr, by any chance? Cuz I am seeing a pattern here…

  17. Marginally off-topic:
    «Only licensed vendors will be permitted to sell acid and those who want to buy it will have to submit a photo identity proof and an address proof, the Centre told the [Indian] Supreme Court on Tuesday.
    The submission came after the top court observed last week that the Centre was not serious enough to ban sale of acid though girls are dying every day due to acid attacks.
    »

    Different continent, same stupid ‘solutions’. Come on, Indians! It’s not the tools, it’s the culture.

    http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1861987/report-now-it-s-official-can-t-buy-acid-without-id-proof

    • Because we all know you can’t find acid or other dangerously corrosive items in other places.

      Dint the UFC moron have a .22 that looked scary? I’m pretty sure 1000 rounds of 22 is called two boxes of ammo, and wieghs as much as a good steak.

  18. Doesn’t matter…Lucky Gunner is another company that jacked up their prices on ammo. Maybe not a bad as CTD, but they still decided to screw gun owners. It does not matter if it a little or a lot, being screwed is being screwed. Remember there are other options.

    • Those are just market forces moving prices. Its business, get over it. CTD is really on peoples shit-list not for jacking up prices, but for deciding to stop selling “assault rifles” to the public.

      • If you are okay getting screwed…then go ahead and purchase the expensive stuff. Me, I can wait and will not support those who jacked up the prices.

  19. I’m not sure how all that is relevant, given that it has nothing to do with this story, and it’s not exactly like RF took a swing at Linoge here. Having read it all before (a couple times), you can see that Linoge (and others) had legitimate gripes, but you can also see supporting evidence for my comment that he sometimes just likes to bitch. He had some valid points (NB: the vast majority of them got fixed, and procedures changed to prevent those kinds of things in the future), but he also seemed to enjoy the controversy and “keeping it alive” to a pretty healthy (or unhealthy) degree. He still continues to keep it alive by referencing that post, even when it’s not germane to the topic at hand, like here. He could have used a quote from 500 different sources about the car he was trying to sell, but he chose the one that let him get in another poke at RF. Maybe that was the best quote on the entire internet that most accurately represents how he feels about the car. Or maybe not.

    • If you do not like what I choose to write on my property, you are cordially invited to not read it. At this point, I cannot say as though I will notice the absence.

      • As you’re not really writing much anymore, if I stopped, how would either of us really tell?

        I did enjoy a lot of your other stuff though.

  20. It really is easy to have 6k 223 rounds shipped to your door.
    The problem is carrying the 200 30 rnd mags weighing 175 pounds when you go on your spree.
    The reporters that use round possession counts are either disengenious knowing that that you can’t carry 5 or 6k rounds or are too stupid to do the math.
    (28#x6k)+(200 mags x??)=168#+ or actually dont think ammo weighs anything.

  21. The guy who wrote this story is full of crap, you can buy a car over the internet, but if you use it to kill someone, it’s the car dealers fault you misused his product????
    what about knives, hammers, clubs, etc.?????????????????????

    WHAT ABOUT YOU PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS, ON THE PERPETRATOR ????????

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