Badger guns, and 'crime guns'

Milwaukee's Badger Guns (formerly Badger Outdoors) is no stranger to controversy. With a long-established reputation as a major source of "crime guns," it has long been a favorite target of the forcible citizen disarmament lobby. From a May, 2006 article:

West Milwaukee's Badger Outdoors last year again was tops among all gun shops in the nation for selling guns that later were recovered by police during criminal investigations, according to new data from the federal government.

In 2005, there were 537 crime guns - an average of more than 10 a week - recovered and traced to Badger, the Milwaukee area's largest gun dealer. None of the others in the top five had more than 500 crime guns traced to them, according to the document from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

[ . . . ]

In 1998, Badger had the most crime guns traced to it among all gun dealers in the United States and then fell from the top spot, only to regain the spot last year. Badger has been criticized for selling cheap handguns, which were bought by "straw buyers" with clean records and then passed on to gang members. In a 1999 sweep, the majority of straw buyers bought the guns legally at Badger.

One fact that is always glossed over by those who screech these statistics is that traced guns are not necessarily "crime guns."

Mick Beatovic, the owner at the time, resented (with good reason) being blamed for whatever violence was committed with guns bought at his shop.

Beatovic attributed the high ranking to the low number of gun stores in Milwaukee, Badger's proximity to a high-crime area and the practice of Milwaukee police of tracing every recovered gun, something that not all departments do.

Beatovic said his store on S. 43rd St. isn't part of the problem. He said he often testifies in court cases, opens his records to detectives and frequently calls police to arrest people trying to buy guns illegally.

"We are not the bad guys, damn it. I don't care what those numbers say," he said.

Wisconsin's forcible citizen disarmament lobbying group wasn't buying it:

Jeri Bonavia, executive director, Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, said Badger needs close scrutiny.

"Clearly, what they are doing is not enough," she said. "You don't end up number one in the entire nation by crossing all the t's and dotting i's."

No evidence--just a standard anti-gun witch hunt.

On the other hand, I can't muster a great deal of sympathy for Beatovic, as I see him as something of a traitor. This is what he said about a bill proposed in Wisconsin that would have required background checks even on private gun sales (which would then, of course, cease to be private):

"The anti-gunners say, 'Let's do it.' The pro-gunners say, 'Oh, my God. You can't do it.' Well come on. Somebody needs to wake up, smell the coffee, alright, this is the way to stop it," says Mick Beatovic of the Badger Outdoors gun store.

Whether he took that position out of a desire to neutralize what he might have thought of as a competitive advantage of private sellers, or he simply wanted to placate the citizen disarmament lobby, by compromising away that which shall not be infringed--or perhaps it was a combination of both considerations--matters little to me. Whichever--he was on the wrong side, and serving only himself. Thankfully, the bill failed.

In 2007, though, Beatovic sold the store to an employee, Adam Allan, who changed the name to Badger Guns. Since then, controversy has, if anything, intensified.

More to come . . .

Badger guns, and 'crime guns,' Part II

Yesterday, we looked at the controversy that dogged a gun shop (Badger Outdoors) in Milwaukee. Since then, the store has a (slightly) new name: Badger Guns, and a new owner: former Badger Outdoors employee Adam Allan. What has not changed is the level of controversy, or the source of that controversy: Badger's reputation as a major source of "crime guns."

Back in the Badger Outdoors days, the owner, Mick Beatovic, despite his store's reputation as a "crime gun" source, had a personal reputation of willingness to work with the mayor and with law enforcement to address their concerns.

The store's owner then, Mick Beatovic, vowed to cooperate. He promised to stop selling certain cheap guns. He always quickly turned over gun sale records and surveillance tape and testified in court, Smith said.

"Their surveillance is excellent, the cooperation is good but it never stops the problem," Smith said. "It is the game we play with them.

I would actually call Beatovic a bit too cooperative--by agreeing to stop selling affordable handguns, he tacitly agreed to price poor people--the very people who live in neighborhoods where they will most likely need to defend themselves--out of the self-defense market. As I pointed out yesterday, there's also this:

Studies have shown that most crime guns change hands at least once after they are sold by a gun shop or other dealer. However, no background check or paperwork for sale is done after the initial purchase. That is wrong, Beatovic said.

He said he has done background checks for people who are selling guns privately and want to make sure they aren't selling to a felon. Beatovic said all gun sales should require background checks.

"Anyone in their right mind should not be against it - and that comes from a gun owner and NRA member," he said.

In other words, Beatovic lobbied in favor of outlawing private gun sales--a rather . . . convenient (self-serving) stance for a gun dealer.

Still, despite Beatovic's cooperation, he was still vilified and harassed--which is perhaps why the new owner seems to have seen little incentive in acquiescing to the demands being placed on him.

Those demands are considerable:

Mayor Tom Barrett called on Badger immediately to begin scanning the identification of everyone coming into the store, like some bars do, and to look up anyone who wants to shoot on the range to make sure he isn't a felon.

Police Chief Edward Flynn suggested that anyone who comes into the store to buy a gun or shoot on the range sign a sworn affidavit saying he is not a criminal or committing a crime. Then store managers should allow police to inspect it, he said.

These demands, let's remember, are not mandated by law--they're simply steps that the mayor and police chief want the owner to take "voluntarily." As a gun owner, I would never patronize a store that agreed to such demands. Not because I have anything to hide, but because I refuse to allow my exercise of my Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms to be used as justification to treat me as a second class citizen, as a suspect; and I would guess that I am far from the only gun owner who sees it that way.

Says Chief Flynn:

"We are past the point of negotiating," he said. "They need to get their act together."

Or else . . . ?

That's what I thought.

Allan, by the way, does work hard to block "straw purchases." He bans the use of cell phones in the store, because one way such purchases are made is that the person prohibited from gun possession recruits a purchaser with a clean record, who often knows nothing about guns, and thus needs some over-the-phone guidance to select the right one. Allan also claims to turn away a great many suspicious would-be purchasers--a claim I find quite plausible, because considering all the scrutiny his store has been under, I am certain that numerous "sting" attempts have been made, obviously without success.

Here's a recent anecdote about police surveillance of Badger Guns.

The felon finally fessed up but insisted he was only in Badger to help his 22-year-old girlfriend shop for a gun. Officer Joseph Honzelka quizzed the woman. He found her answers suspicious - she didn't know a handgun from a shotgun.

"I asked her what kind of gun she was looking for," Honzelka said. "She said she looked at all the guns and didn't like any."

Police suspected she was a potential straw buyer, but there was little officers could do. There was no gun in the car and no proof the felon touched a firearm while in Badger. The only option for police would be to tell the felon's parole agent he had been in the store.

In other words, no "straw sale" was made, and in fact, a straw purchase may have been thwarted by the alertness and conscientiousness of Allan and/or his staff.

The latest controversy is over a sign Allan had up protesting the constant police stake-outs in front of the store, and what he views as racial profiling of his customers. Columnist Eugene Kane disagrees--I've talked about him before.

Others calls to have Badger forced out of business (just what a struggling economy needs--more businesses shut down), despite zero evidence of wrongdoing:

Badger Gun Shop in Milwaukee
Badger Guns In West Milwaukee Should Be Forced Out Of Business
Changes needed

So much for the presumption of evidence pending proof of guilt, eh?

More about Badger Guns, new (to me) blogger

I've written a couple times recently about Badger Guns in Milwaukee (or West Milwaukee, to be more precise, apparently). The very short story is that Badger Guns has a reputation as a major source of "crime guns," and is under heavy, relentless pressure by the mayor and police chief of Milwaukee, along with various anti-gun groups, to go well beyond the requirements of the law, and implement a policy of imposing all kinds of draconian, impractical intrusions on customers--brilliant business model, eh?

Anyway, the Badger-Baiters try to paint Badger as being the criminals' friend, and the enemy of law and order, and thus of society as a whole.

Upon my discovery of the Between Two Rivers blog, I learned of further evidence that folks are being misled on that score.

Badger Guns in West Milwaukee (earlier posts: Badger Guns update 10/6/09) gives an assist to local police and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel doesn't bother to report about it. No they'd rather castigate the owners.

A local radio station gives kudos to the guns store. Controversial Gun Store Helps Police

Go check out the details.

Congresswoman from WI jumps on the Badger-bashing bandwagon

Hmm--the title ended up being a bit more alliterative than I'd planned, but no matter.

Wednesday, we talked about yet another hit piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about Badger Guns, and the fact that the former owner (never proven to have committed any crimes) is now the landlord for the store, whose current ownership has still not been demonstrated to have committed any crimes. This, of course, greatly offends the Journal Sentinel.

Between Two Rivers has also been following the Badger Guns persecution, and has more.

Now, it seems, Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI) has written a letter to the BATFE, apparently out of frustration that nothing Badger's ownership is doing is actionable (since, inconveniently, they can't be demonstrated--much less proven--to have broken any laws). Here's an excerpt:

It is obvious that Badger Guns continues to willfully break the law --- local police departments know it, citizens of my district know it, and most importantly, ATF seems to know it. Yet, for some inconceivable reason, these individuals have been able to evade federal and local officials in plain sight by simply shuffling management titles and property ownership papers. It is in everyone’s interest to ensure that gun dealers abide by the law, both in my district and states across the country. If it is a matter of having sufficient authority to revoke irresponsible licenses or impose fines please detail what additional authority ATF needs to close bad actors. I want to ensure that the ATF has the statutory and regulatory resources to accomplish this goal.

"It is obvious," Ms. Moore? It's not even "obvious" to me what law Badger has supposedly broken, much less that they actually have broken any such laws (and that's before we even get into the Constitutional justification and need for such laws).

So now, Moore apparently wants to write the BATFE a big check, and pass laws giving them yet more power, to make their gun store harassment operations more effective.

I believe that much can be learned about someone by observing the quality of the enemies he makes. From what I've seen of the folks going after Badger Guns owner Adam Allan, he's OK in my book.

Now, they want to make it harder to sell a gun store

We've talked a few times about Badger Guns, in West Milwaukee, WI, and the campaign to demonize the store, and even force it out of business (despite no compelling evidence of illegal behavior on the part of the owner). This campaign has been waged by the mayor and police chief of Milwaukee, with a big assist from local papers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It's that paper that recently ran a long story about the transfer of ownership, in early 2007, from former owner Mick Beatovic, to current owner Adam Allan (with Allan obtaining a Federal Firearms License for that address, and Beatovic giving up his).

At the time of the change in ownership, Allan was an employee of the store, and his father, Walter Allan, was co-owner and president of the company. The store was also under a cloud of BATFE suspicion (harassment?), making it a good time for Beatovic to retire, although he claims to have had no idea that the BATFE had designs on shutting the store down.

Beatovic still owns the building, and is therefore the landlord for Badger Guns. The thrust of the article is that there is something sinister and wrong here--that Beatovic is still connected in some way to the gun commerce business, despite a pending effort on the BATFE's part to revoke his license, and that he, through Badger, is "still" involved in shady dealings (remember--no one has proved that he ever did anything to justify license revocation).

[Deputy assistant director for field operations at BATFE headquarters Jim] Zammillo said a federal law, which pertains only to gun dealers, doesn't allow ATF to look behind the person applying when considering granting a new license.

"You could have the same players involved and it is a new corporation because the statute doesn't get to the principals behind the corporate name. It only looks at the corporation, and the corporation is the applicant," Zammillo said.

That is different than licensing for other businesses, including liquor wholesalers, where inspectors investigate all the people behind the business and deny a license if one of those people is barred or is likely to break the law, he said.

"It gave you access to the character and the record of the people behind the corporate name," Zammillo said of alcohol business regulation, which is now handled by the Treasury Department. "This (gun dealer) statute, the way it is worded, does not give us that authority."

Using its limited authority, ATF investigated whether Beatovic and Walter Allan were "secret owners," Zammillo said. Investigators couldn't prove it, he said.

If the idea behind all this licensing and red tape is the reduction of "gun violence," why the hell does it matter if there's a "secret owner" profiting from the business? If the current owner of record (and current license holder) is complying with all relevant laws (and there's no compelling evidence that Allan is not), then the level of "gun violence" is unaffected by who is profiting behind the scenes. The fact that liquor licenses are handled differently is not an indictment of the FFL system (to which the real objection is the requirement for "licensing" in the first place), but of the liquor licensing system (which, again, shouldn't exist in the first place).

The "best" part was a line by former West Milwaukee Police Chief Eugene Oldenberg, in which he actually brought up the "straw purchase" theme:

As a local police chief, he had no say in the sale of a gun store. Told about the violations at Badger Outdoors and the license change, Oldenburg said it raises more questions.

"So this looks like the straw sale of a gun store," he said.

Between Two Rivers has more.

And yet another lie from CSGV

They just can't help themselves.

From their Facebook page (emphasis mine):

Burgess was actually being modest about Wisconsin Carry's contributions to The Badger State. He didn't even mention the "Madison 5," those legendary patriots who ventured into a Culver's restaurant while openly carrying loaded handguns on September 18, 2010 (http://thetruthaboutguns.com/2010/09/robert-farago/wisconsin-carry-files-federal-lawsuit-v-madison-and-madison-police-chief/). When a 62-year-old woman in the restaurant panicked and called 911, the Madison 5 were arrested by Madison police officers and charged with disorderly conduct.

Hmm . . . "panicked and called"?

Not so much. Let's read some of the transcript of that 911 call:

The caller, Ms. Phyllis Micke, emphasized to the 911 dispatcher that the guns were in holsters, and that “there’s no problem” . . . [the men are] “just sitting there extremely relaxed.”

After the dispatcher explained that open carry was legal unless they are threatening or disturbing people, Micke declared that

“there’s no problem and it’s no emergency . . .I feel bad then, if they’re not doing anything wrong then it’s my mistake.”

And lest "gun control" apologists note that the above quotes of the 911 call transcript were provided by a gun rights activist, and thus perhaps suspect in the minds of forcible citizen disarmament advocates, there is also an audio recording of the call available.

Keep those lies coming, CSGV--keep digging that hole.