Fleet Farms a Handy Scapegoat to Send Message to MN Gun Stores (2024)

Straw purchases are probably the second most common way criminals get guns. Not every convicted felon knows someone who not only can buy a gun but will do so unlawfully on behalf of someone else.

I don't know about you, but I'm not risking my freedom over something like that.

Some people will, especially if there's enough money involved. And a lot of straw purchasers are smart enough to not give off obvious signs that they're buying a gun for someone else.

In Minnesota, though, it seems that if you don't pick up on it, you're bound to have a lawsuit on your hands. What's more, that lawsuit may see additional charges tacked on after it was filed.

The Minnesota Attorney General is looking to add to a current lawsuit against Fleet Farm, saying the retail giant failed to protect against sales of firearms to straw buyers, who then resell them to people who are prohibited from their possession.

Attorney General Keith Ellison has brought several claims against Fleet Farm for violating the Minnesota Gun Control Act, alleging, "repeated negligent sales of firearms to straw purchasers despite obvious warning signs."

A new ruling by U.S. District Court Judge John Tunheim says that Ellison can now amend the complaint, authorizing him to seek additional penalties and fees from Fleet Farm, "to protect Minnesotans from unfair and unlawful conduct."

"I appreciate the decisions of the Court to allow my Office to bring claims against Fleet Farm and any business we believe has violated the Minnesota Gun Control Act," Ellison said in a statement following the ruling. "Yes, individual offenders who perpetrate gun violence must be held accountable under the law, but so too must businesses that sell firearms to straw purchasers and threaten Minnesotans’ safety."

Of course, still missing is any real evidence that anyone at Fleet Farms should reasonably have known that a straw purchase was being committed.

See, this is one of those cases where you have to establish that someone had a reason to actually know something was going on in order for there to be any kind of a crime.

Ellison, in a press release that gets into the background of the case, argues:

Two straw purchasers to whom Fleet Farm sold guns have been convicted of federal crimes related to their illegal purchases. Fleet Farm sold at least 37 firearms to these two straw purchasers over the course of 16 months, often selling multiple guns in single transactions or over very short periods of time. One of the guns Fleet Farm sold to a straw purchaser was fired in a large-scale shootout in a St. Paul bar on October 10, 2021, that ended in the death of a 27-year-old woman and multiple injured bystanders. Another gun Fleet Farm sold to this same straw purchaser was found by a six-year-old boy in front of his family’s house, where the gun was likely discarded by suspects fleeing from another public shooting incident. Most guns Fleet Farm sold to straw purchasers remain unrecovered, risking additional harm.

But is that suspicious in and of themselves?

Let's be clear, a lot of people who work selling guns are gun people. They like guns and they want to make a living working with what they like.

As a gun person myself, the only thing stopping me from buying that many guns over that period of time is that my bank account simply doesn't allow for it. I had a friend who lived rather frugally and, upon us both getting a good job at a much higher pay rate, I watched him buy a lot of guns over a short period of time.

He kept pretty much all of them, only selling one or two much later after he worked out that he just didn't like them.

So isn't it plausible that the clerks simply assumed these were people who were just living the dream?

Of course, knowingly selling a gun in a straw purchase is a crime and Ellison can't prove any such thing, which is why this went to civil court.

Civil court has a much lower burden of proof. If Ellison had sufficient evidence that Fleet Farms did something wrong, he'd have made arrests, not filed a lawsuit.

So what he's doing is trying to send a message here. He's making it clear that if you sell guns in Minnesota, you face the possibility of ending up in court simply because the wrong person bought a firearm from you. It doesn't matter if you really did everything legally. The process is the punishment, and Fleet Farms is just the first scapegoat.

Expect to see more.

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