Traders Gun Shop (CA) Told to Close June 1

[PinnedAndRecessed]

Traders Sports, one of the biggest gun dealers in the state, hopes a hearing in U.S. District Court next week will keep them in business.

Traders has been under scrutiny for several years by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), which is trying to shut down the gun dealer. The ATF decided to revoke Traders gun permit on June 1. After an audit in 2003, the ATF claims that Traders can’t account for 1,767 weapons, and that guns sold at Traders turn up in crimes at an alarming rate.

ATF spokeswoman Marti McKee said she couldn’t comment on the hearing, which is coming up next Thursday, May 25 in San Francisco before Judge Vaughn Walker.

Traders’ owner Tony Cucchiara also declined to comment on the hearing, deferring questions to his lawyer, Malcolm Segal.

The gun shop claims the ATF’s figures don’t add up because of human error, filling out paperwork wrong. They also say the ATF is unfairly targeting the store and going beyond reasonable annual inspections.

“The law allows one inspection a year — that’s a law passed by Congress — and the ATF inspected twice in one year,” said Segal.

Segal said the ATF decided to close Traders after their own hearing in which they used records going back 30 years.

“The errors they claim are really human errors,” Segal said. “Any time there are thousands of transactions with serial numbers in dozens of digits, there is always bound to be human error.”

The ATF initially claimed in its audit that Traders couldn’t account for 7,477 weapons, but the number in the final account was reduced to 1,767. Customers going to Traders this week tended to be on the gun shop’s side.

“I don’t like what they’re doing because it’s a good store,” said Sonny Verde, who comes from Marin County to shop at Traders. “They should go after the criminals not the gun stores.”

Last week the U.S. Department of Justice filed papers saying that guns sold by Traders have been recovered in a crime at a rate of nearly one per day.

About one in every eight guns sold by Traders between 2003 and 2005 has wound up in a crime, the second highest number of guns traced to crimes of any dealer in the nation, according to the Department of Justice.

In 1994, Muckraker magazine featured a story on Traders, listing violations found by the ATF going back to 1970, including sales to people who couldn’t legally buy guns and “straw sales,” which is a purchase by a legal buyer who turns the gun over to someone who can’t legally buy a gun.

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[PinnedAndRecessed]

I remember hearing about this store when I was still living in the valley. They always had a good rep among gun people.

But I don't know about the quoted statistics. Viz., if those numbers are excessive or not.

 

[MechAg94]

1 of 8 guns used in crimes is a lot. I would like to know exactly how those gun got to be crime guns. How many other stores are in the area and what are their rates? Were they stolen? Were they bought by people who can legally buy the guns? Why aren't they going after the people who bought those guns?

 

[PinnedAndRecessed]

You're right, Mech. The ATF isn't releasing enough information.

Of course, the ATF isn't a democracy, is it? They don't care about opinion. Not ours, anyway.

I'll tell you one thing, the case is coming before a San Fran judge. Traders is doomed.

(How's the gun confiscation in San Fran coming, anyway?)

 

[SaxonPig]

The shop is in or near Oakland which is a very high crime area. Any gun in the area has a good chance of winding up in criminal hands.

Also, there are so few gunshops in that region that of course a large number of recovered guns are going to trace back eventually to that shop. There's only a couple of shops still open and Trader's is the biggest.

The ATF has been on a campaign the last couple years (I thought Bush and the GOP were our friends and would rein in the ATF?) to go over the books on large urban shops with a fine-toothed comb looking for every minor infraction so they can pull the license and make headlines with "1700 infractions found."

This happened to my favorite shop in another CA city last January. The ATF inspected like 4 times in 6 months and found numerous tiny errors over a 30 year period and pulled the FFL on what had been the biggest gun shop in town. The owners had the last laugh, though, as one of them had a second FFL in his name and they reopened immediately under a new business name using this FFL. Now they spend 8 hours each week reviewing all transactions to make sure every t is crossed and every i is dotted. What a bunch of crap! The ATF is totally out of control and this wasn't supposed to happen under Bush, was it? he's almost as big a back-stabber as his old man.

 

[Leif]

Now they spend 8 hours each week reviewing all transactions to make sure every t is crossed and every i is dotted.

Shouldn't they be doing this anyway? I mean, if gunowners are going to go up against antis by using arguments such "enforce the existing laws instead of passing new ones", then they need to be part of the solution rather than the problem and have their records in order and their businesses squeaky clean so that nobody can come back and claim that their sloppiness in record-keeping prevented effective enforcement or, worse yet, abetted infractions against the existing laws (regardless of whether they personally agree with those laws).

I know nothing about the particular case cited in this thread, but in general terms it seems foolhardy at best for a gun retailer not to already be taking a fine-toothed comb to the records of their transactions in light of the scrutiny that the gun industry and gun ownership receives in this country.

That, and 30 years is a long time to build a case. I'll be curious to hear more about it.

 

[Langenator]

What exactly is the ATF's policy with regard to going digital on records and especially bound books?

It would seem to me that a bar code scanner for in/out would make it a hell of a lot easier.

 

[Creeping Incrementalism]

[This happened to my favorite shop in another CA city last January. The ATF inspected like 4 times in 6 months and found numerous tiny errors over a 30 year period and pulled the FFL on what had been the biggest gun shop in town.

Which one was that?

 

[Car Knocker]

“Any time there are thousands of transactions with serial numbers in dozens of digits, there is always bound to be human error.”

I don't believe that I've ever seen a serial number with "dozens of digits". Has anyone here seen one like that?

 

[ajax]

Leif I think you hit the nail on the head. Gun shops and gun owners alike have a greater responsibility to shoulder if were to keep or rights intact from all groups who want the second amendment to go away. That includes outstanding record keeping.

 

[SaxonPig]

Leif, we're talking the difference between minor clerical errors and criminal intent. Of course we should all obey the law, but we are all human and mistakes happen. If a cop pulls you over I bet he can find SOMETHING on your car that's not right and give you a ticket. Does that make you unsafe? A criminal? Over zealous enforcement can create all sorts of violations.

Some of the things they were cited for were misspelling the gun buying customer's city of birth and logging a repaired gun out on Monday and then the customer didn't pick it up until Tuesday. Give me a break. This is pure harassment.

I'd rather not say what shop as I don't think they wanted this made public. Who in the gun business needs bad PR?

 

[Leif]

Saxonpig, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. However, if those minor clerical errors are going to be construed as criminal intent due to overzealous enforcement, then the response should be overzealous record-keeping to prevent those same clerical errors, while perhaps addressing the overzealous enforcement in another manner than on appeal because the gunshop was prosecuted for those clerical errors. Furthermore, the ideological opposition probably is not going to make a distinction between minor clerical errors and major violations of the law.

To use your traffic stop analogy, if a police officer pulls me over in a traffic stop and something is out of order and in violation of the law, then he is well within the bounds of his job to take appropriate action against me, which may well result in my being judged as a 'criminal.' Now, I can complain about the possible and maybe even probable unfairness of this all I want, but it will not (or should not) change the immediate result. Appealing the matter might, but that is after the fact (not to mention much easier in a the case of a traffic matter as opposed to a full-blown ATF investigation), so really the best course of action is the preventative course of action, as tedious and annoying as that might be.

Now, watch me get pulled over tonight.

 

[spacemanspiff]

a lax attitude toward proper records keeping regarding federal law appears to be the reason for the closure.

filling out 4473's properly and logging guns in/out of the book is not that difficult.

 

[10-Ring]

Now, I do remember hearing alot...no, ALOT...of stories about how those guys did business. Looks like things finally caught up w/ them...

 

[musher]

As the ATF themselves have pointed out, having a gun show up in a trace tells you nothing about whether or not it was a gun used by a criminal.

If the store is in a bad area, it doesn't seem unreasonable that their customers would be in self-defense situations more often than the average.

Could be that the traces on a lot of these guns were due to the weapon being used in self defense.

 

[Zen21Tao]

Traders can’t account for 1,767 weapons, and that guns sold at Traders turn up in crimes at an alarming rate.

This sounds to me like a witch hunt in an overly anti-gun state. Let's see, a high number of guns ends up involved in crime IN THE NATIONS HIGHEST CRIME AREA? Wow, what a surprise.

If this gunstore sells their guns legally to those legally allowed to own them then the problem is the criminal element, not the gunstore.

I can imagine how these guns end up in criminal hands; some legally allowed to own guns commit straw purchases, buy for themself but then convicted of a felong and don't turn thier once legal guns in, legally owned guns stolen, once legal gun sold to black market for drugs, legal gun pawned then resold illegally, etc.

This also sounds to me much like excuses used to defuse someone from the responsability for their own actions. What a shock, it's never the criminals fault he commited a crime.

I can hear the leftist rant now, "we can't blame the poor disadvantaged individuals that turns to crime. They are just products of their evil environment, like the hated gunstore that puts guns in the hands on criminals just so they can sell others guns under the guise of 'protection'. Its the gunstore that fuels crime by selling the tools criminals use to commit crimes." :banghead:

 

[deadin]

App. 1800 guns "lost" over 30 years? Human error?
That's more than 1 week since 1975. Who/what are they hiring to do their record keeping? Illegals?

Dean