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D.C. And Maryland AGs Sue Gun Stores For Selling To Straw Purchaser

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Prosecutors are directing blame for an influx of guns in the nation's capital at three federally licensed firearms stores in Maryland, USA Today reports. Attorneys general of Maryland and Washington D.C. filed a lawsuit Tuesday against three gun shops for selling firearms to a straw purchaser – the same stores identified as the top retailers of recovered crime guns in Maryland between August 2020 and July 2021, according to a report commissioned by the state attorney general’s office. According to the lawsuit, the three stores in Montgomery County, Maryland, collectively sold 34 semiautomatic pistols to one person in six months. Only two remained with the purchaser, while the rest are presumed to be trafficked, prosecutors said. Some have been recovered from people accused of assault, a stabbing, and drug distribution, the lawsuit added, while most remain unaccounted for.


The gun stores – Engage Armament, United Gun Shop and Atlantic Guns – collectively sold Demetrius Minor, an "obvious straw purchaser," 34 guns between April 6 and October 5, 2021, according to the lawsuit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court. According to Engage Armament’s records cited in the lawsuit, Minor spent more than $31,000 at the one store for at least 25 guns. In July 2021 alone, he came to the store at least four times and bought five guns, prosecutors said. Minor gave many of the weapons to a relative, Donald Willis, a Washington D.C. resident with a record of violent felonies, the lawsuit said, and Willis then spread the guns to other "dangerous individuals." At least nine of the weapons, which the lawsuit contends were "illegally sold," were found at crime scenes in Washington D.C. and surrounding Maryland suburbs. The lawsuit comes as public health experts and gun safety advocates warn about an alarming level of gun violence across the nation — guns are the leading killer of children in the U.S. and kill nearly 50,000 people a year. Lawsuits in other states have also targeted sellers and traffickers as culprits in gun crimes, including New Jersey, Michigan, and Philadelphia.

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