The Attorneys General of Washington, D.C., and Maryland have launched a lawsuit against three gun stores in Maryland. These attorneys general are teaming up with the anti-civil rights organization Everytown Law, a spin-off of Everytown for Gun Safety, the billionaire-funded disarmament campaign. That billionaire is Michael Bloomberg, a man protected by guns 24/7.
According to the lawsuit, these three gun stores sold Demetrius Minor nearly three dozen weapons over a seven-month period. He then illegally crossed into Washington, D.C., and proceeded to sell those guns illegally to criminals. Demetrius Minor has been tried and pleaded guilty to one count of dealing in firearms without a license and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
The lawsuit makes the very broad claim that these gun stores were complicit in these sales and responsible for Demetrius Minor’s criminal actions. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb claims, “All three of these stores ignored the red flags.” He doesn’t list any particular red flags. Let’s be clear: The guns came from Maryland, a state known for its fairly strict gun laws.
The Attorneys General And Maryland
From what I can gather, handguns require a permit to purchase, registration, owner licensing, and a permit to carry. I’m using the NRA ILA as my source. Shouldn’t these strict gun laws prevent someone like Demetrius Minor from being able to traffic firearms?
To obtain a handgun, you have to complete a Maryland State Police Application and Affidavit To Purchase a Regulated Firearm. You must pass a fingerprint-based background check and have a valid Handgun Qualification License. Why didn’t the State of Maryland detect any anomalies if all this is required? The Attorney General of D.C. should be suing the State of Maryland.
Following the Attorney General’s logic, if the three gun stores had been able to detect and track multiple purchases over a period of seven months and recognize a pattern, then the State of Maryland should most certainly have detected a pattern. Unlike three individual gun stores, the Maryland State Police is one organization that receives the Maryland State Police Application and Affidavit to Purchase a Regulated Firearm every time Demetrius purchases a gun.
Are gun store clerks supposed to be better at recognizing patterns of criminality than the State Police? It seems like they shouldn’t be, and the idea that a person would memorize every face and name they sold a firearm to is absurd as well. Gun stores have multiple clerks working, and Demetrius spread his purchases of firearms over seven months. The idea that the gun store would be capable or expected to track such a thing is a ridiculous assertion.
Attorneys General and Lawfare
It is seemingly humorous that the State of Maryland would jump aboard this lawsuit. Their strict gun laws were supposed to stop things like this. The literal State Police are part of every firearm sale, and yet the Attorneys General are blaming three gun stores in Maryland. These gun stores aren’t responsible for the crime of Demetrius Minor.
This is a ploy by two anti-civil rights Attorneys General to target the 2nd Amendment rights of American citizens through organized lawfare. They are using the assets of a billionaire-funded organization to restrict the rights of American citizens by shutting down small gun stores. They don’t even need to win the lawsuit.
All they need to do is sue these small businesses. The Attorneys General have this infinite money glitch called taxpayer funding. The funding they can toss around wildly. The gun stores don’t have that. They’ll have to fight with their own dollars, and selling guns doesn’t make you rich. More than likely, the Attorney General will sue these small businesses out of business.
A Scary Future
They ruin the livelihoods of small business owners and then brag about it to get reelected. What we are seeing here isn’t justice. It’s just plain evil. The City of Chicago is using similar tactics to target Glock as well as Illinois gun stores. It’s a tactic we are seeing more and more of throughout the United States, and it’s absolutely terrifying.
Behind the curtain, it also shows the impotence of strict gun laws. Demetrius Minor doesn’t seem to be a criminal genius, yet he avoided detection by the Maryland State Police even though he had to fill out and send a form to them for every firearm he purchased.
Demetrius Minor broke the law when he lied on that form, when he purchased the guns with the intent to sell them, when he crossed into D.C. with the guns, and when he sold the guns.
How his commission of several felonies is the responsibility of three small gun stores in Maryland is beyond me.
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