I hope everyone had a great break and that Santa brought you a lot of presents and old friends and good times. Unfortunately, for several Americans in Tucson, Ariz., a gun ensured they would never again enjoy the holidays. That’s a pretty stark and unrelenting thought, and I want it to stick, because if we are going to have a real conversation about improving gun control you must ask yourself, when the NRA screeches about defending your rights, who is defending Christina Taylor Green?
Christina Taylor Green believed in our political system. When other 9-year-olds were watching TV, she was involving herself in that system. She heinously lost her life while she served her country. For her, for the victims of the Washington sniper and for every police officer injured or killed by legally distributed guns in this country, we need to have a new conversation about guns. Right now the mix of guns and politics has left us with an almost unregulated industry, with unenforceable restraints and near complete immunity from legal intervention.
Badger Guns, a gun store in West Milwaukee started by Mick Beatovic, his brother Curtis and Walter Allan, brings the problems of gun control home. Badger Guns opened in 1987 as Badger Guns & Ammo. In its first five years, the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, which is the primary government department to oversee gun sales) found violations all three times they visited the store. In 1993 the shop received a warning letter saying that repeated violations could be viewed as willful and result in a license revocation.
The wording “willful” is important because it is a stricter legal guideline than any of the other products under the ATF – neither alcohol nor tobacco require a willful violation to be considered illegal. Also, given the store’s high volume of sales (which individual numbers cannot be identified, due to the Tiahrt Amendment passed by Congress in 2003, which makes it illegal for the ATF to disclose not only volume of gun sales, but in some cases prevents them from even telling law enforcement where the most crime guns came from) the ATF could have been visiting Badger Guns yearly, yet they only came three out of six years despite the fact that they found violations every time.
The real dilemma in this story? Trying to decide who is less full of shit, honestly. Beatovic’s defense of how he violated ATF regulations: “Our records were so screwed up. It was so bad because I was doing the books…You sell 60,000 guns you are going to have some problems with bookkeeping.” Seriously? I should have written that on my accounting final. “Well, this company sold a lot of units so, what the hell, this number should be close.” I missed that in the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). Not to mention Beatovic fails to disclose over what time period it takes to sell 60,000 guns, yet none of this drew any immediate action from the ATF.
In 1999 a federal report of the top sellers of crime guns found, you guessed it, Badger Guns & Ammo as the number one seller in the country. This is a huge problem because the report further revealed that 57 percent of crime guns come from 1 percent of gun stores. Over the next seven years the store name would change to Badger Outdoors, but the culture of non-compliance continued with more violations and a permanent place on the nation’s top crime gun seller list. Justice, regulation and common-fucking-sense seemed poised to finally step in and revoke a license from an entity that had spent the past 20 years as a “public nuisance,” as one cop called it, when yet another intentional exclusion for the gun stores came to light.
Two months after an inspection that allegedly resulted in the ATF pushing to revoke the license, owner Mike Beatovic retired, and Co-owner Walter Allan’s son Adam Allan created a new business called Badger Guns. This new business would take over the property of Badger Outdoors, owned by a company called Regdab properties (badger backwards, super original) which of course was owned by Beatovic. Walter Allan would return and work “for” his son, despite the fact that his son seemed to have no real idea of what was in the store. When inspectors asked Adam Allan how much the inventory in his store was worth, he said he had no idea and called Beatovic into the room. When asked how he would pay for it all, his answer is conspicuously blacked out.
What does this have to do with the revocation that almost was? Everything. A federal law directed only toward gun dealers does not allow the ATF to look behind the person applying for a new license. So when Adam Allan emerges, it has to be taken as a completely new entity, despite it being obvious that the original players are still in charge. No other business has this freedom, including alcohol, where the people behind the corporate name are accountable, and if any are threats to break the law the license can be revoked. With guns, the new license goes so far as to end all inquiries into the previous license, hence the end to any potential license revocations out of the previous inspections.
The same story can unfortunately be told around the country; the same gun store that sold the Washington sniper his weapon is still owned by the same individual in a similar manner that Badger Guns & Ammo became Badger Guns. Next year the NRA wants to push a bill through that would even further hamper the ATF’s ability to regulate gun sales. We can’t let this happen. We can’t allow the most dangerous product available to be sold without regulations, without real punishments, real sanctions or real policies. Remember Christina Taylor Green, remember the six police officers shot with Badger Guns in the last two years, remember that the next time the NRA calls anyone who promotes gun control a Nazi or a Socialist or a Communist or whatever the phrase of the week is. Remember all of that, because if our government protects the guns, who will protect us?
John Waters ([email protected]) is a junior intending to major in journalism
