Office of Rep. Phil Gingrey
On Thursday, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) stopped by the Cobb County chamber of commerce to explain his views on gun control. But it wasn’t just any gun store—Gingrey, the Marietta Daily Journal reported, “took the time to praise Adventure Outdoors owner Jay Wallace as the gold standard for running a responsible gun retail business.”
The problem: Adventure Outdoors is anything but. In 2006, New York City sued the firm for negligence in preventing its guns from falling into the hands of criminals. Between 1996 and 2000 alone, 256 guns sold at Adventure Outdoors were connected to crimes—21 in New York City alone. “ATF has established that a very small percentage of retail gun dealers—about 1%—are responsible for approximately 57% of the illegally-possessed guns nationwide,” the city explained in its lawsuit. “The Defendants are among this small group of gun dealers who arm illegal gun possessors. As such, the Defendants cause, contribute to and maintain a public nuisance within the City of New York.”
The city specifically singled out Adventure Outdoors for selling guns to what are known as “straw purchasers.” Based in part on the work of two investigators the city hired, the complaint charged that “upon information and belief, Defendants intentionally or negligently sell handguns to prohibited persons through ‘strawman’ purchases, in which an individual legally able to buy a handgun purchases the gun from a licensed gun dealer, intending to transfer it immediately to a prohibited person.”
Here’s the lawsuit:
A default judgment was issued against Adventure Outdoors in 2008, and in 2011, a federal court ordered that an independent outside expert be appointed to oversee the company’s sales practices and ensure it didn’t sell guns to straw purchasers (a federal appeals court later struck a portion of the “special master” mandate, but still subjected the company to an outside monitor*).
Gingrey’s comments came at the same chamber of commerce breakfast in which he defended his former colleague Todd Akin’s suggestion that women who have been raped have special mechanism to prevent a pregnancy, citing his own experience as an OBGYN. Gingrey is chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus.
h/t James Carter IV
*I’ve clarified the language here.
