MNGunTalk.com

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Fleet Farm stores for what he alleges negligently aided and abetted straw purchasers contributing to gun trafficking in Minnesota.

Lumpy wrote:I'd send a critical email to the AG's office, but what's the point?

atomic41 wrote:So no mention of the alleged straw purchaser being prosecuted. Or did I miss that?

Fleetfarm has done nothing wrong, this is another stunt by this corrupt, radical, racist, wifebeating scumbag.

bstrawse wrote:

atomic41 wrote:So no mention of the alleged straw purchaser being prosecuted. Or did I miss that?

Fleetfarm has done nothing wrong, this is another stunt by this corrupt, radical, racist, wifebeating scumbag.

The straw purchasers have been prosecuted federally.

jdege wrote:

bstrawse wrote:

atomic41 wrote:So no mention of the alleged straw purchaser being prosecuted. Or did I miss that?

Fleetfarm has done nothing wrong, this is another stunt by this corrupt, radical, racist, wifebeating scumbag.

The straw purchasers have been prosecuted federally.

And did Fleet Farm cooperate with the federal prosecutors?

Minnesota now alleging Fleet Farm violated state gun control act when it sold firearms to straw buyers
A federal judge last week allowed the state to add new allegations to its lawsuit, first filed in 2022.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has updated a lawsuit against the Fleet Farm retail chain to include allegations that the retailer violated the state's gun control law by repeatedly selling firearms to "straw purchasers" who funneled the guns to felons barred from owning them.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Docherty last week allowed the state to amend its original lawsuit, first filed in 2022, to include the new charge after the Minnesota Supreme Court clarified the scope of Ellison's investigation and enforcement authority in a ruling in an unrelated case.

In a memo to the court, Assistant Attorney General Eric Maloney wrote that Fleet Farm violated the Minnesota Gun Control Act "by transferring firearms to straw purchasers Fleet Farm knew or had reason to know were buying firearms for others, because each of the straw buyers falsely represented that they were the actual buyer in connection with each individual sale."

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The new allegations join existing claims that Fleet Farm acted negligently.

Todd Noteboom, an attorney representing Fleet Farm, argued in filings that Ellison has not alleged that a Fleet Farm store ever failed to require a customer to complete federally required paperwork for firearm transactions, nor did it claim Fleet Farm sold any firearms without receiving the go-ahead from the FBI's background check system.

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Noteboom argued that both Elwood and Horton admitted in guilty pleas that they knowingly deceived Fleet Farm when they bought the guns. Noteboom added that personnel with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told Fleet Farm that "in no way did [Fleet Farm] do anything wrong by selling [Horton] the firearms" because "[t]here was nothing in [Horton's] background that would have rendered a denied response" from the FBI's instant criminal background check system.

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