With lawsuit against gun shops, Maryland AG joins other communities suing to hold sellers accountable

When firearms sold at Maryland gun stores turned up at crime scenes in Washington, D.C., and the surrounding suburbs in 2021, federal prosecutors took action against the man who bought the guns and illegally re-sold them, known as a straw purchaser.

Earlier this week, the attorneys general of Maryland and D.C. moved against other participants in the transactions: the three Montgomery County businesses that sold the firearms in the first place.

The lawsuit against Engage Armament, United Gun Shop and Atlantic Guns is part of a legal strategy aimed at holding gun stores accountable when they sell firearms to straw purchasers. With the suit, Maryland and D.C. joined other communities across the country that have sued over these gun sales.

“We expect gun store owners to be on the front line. They are at the point of sale of every lawful gun transaction,” said Jennifer Donelan, a spokesperson for Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown.

“When they don’t fulfill their duties and responsibilities, bad things happen. Our strategy will continue to be addressing the most egregious of these violations — putting our resources toward enforcement actions that will have the most impact on protecting Marylanders’ safety.”

The lawsuit centers on a public nuisance claim, or the idea that the gun stores contributed to a problem that interferes with the public’s right to use and enjoy public spaces, travel or go to school without fear of gun violence.

“The unfortunate reality is that the individuals using and possessing guns are not the only ones responsible for this problem: gun dealers who flout their legal responsibilities and fail to adhere to responsible business practices are also to blame for putting firearms in the wrong hands, providing easy access to guns and fueling gun violence in the region,” the attorneys general wrote in the lawsuit. “The effects of this irresponsible and unlawful conduct are felt across the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, as guns move throughout the area once they enter the criminal market.”

The lawsuit claims the three gun stores ignored warning signs that the buyer, Demetrius Minor, was engaging in straw purchases. A straw purchase occurs when a federal firearms licensee, like a gun store, sells a gun to a buyer who is actually purchasing the gun for a third party, often a person who is legally prohibited from owning a gun.

The three gun stores named in the lawsuit collectively sold 34 semiautomatic pistols to Minor over a seven-month period, the attorneys general said. He transferred most of the guns to a relative with a history of violent felonies, according to the lawsuit.

Minor “turned around and trafficked the guns,” D.C. Attorney Brian L. Schwalb said at a news conference this week. “Not surprisingly, many of those guns became crime guns, recovered at crime scenes in the district and in Maryland.”

Minor pleaded guilty to dealing firearms without a license and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, court records show.

Nine guns sold to Minor turned up at crime scenes, according to the lawsuit, including one found in the D.C. hotel room of a Prince George’s County man who also was in possession of an illegal high-capacity magazine. Hyattsville police recovered another at the residence of a stabbing suspect.

Mark Pennak, the president of the gun rights group Maryland Shall Issue, said he is still examining the allegations in the lawsuit but questioned how the sales to Minor were permitted when Maryland’s gun laws place limits on how often buyers can purchase handguns and require the buyers to be approved by the state police.

In an emailed statement, Atlantic Guns said it “has never and will never knowingly sell to someone who we have reason to believe is committing a straw purchase. Until we have received and reviewed the complaint, we are unable to comment further.”

Engage Armament and United Gun Shop did not respond to requests for comment.

This type of litigation aimed at gun shops started being used in the late 1990s and early 2000s, said Daniel Webster, a distinguished research scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

“The purpose of these types of laws and the use of it in this manner is to promote business practices that are responsible and take into consideration factors beyond the business’s bottom line,” he said.

Cities like Chicago, Detroit and New York have used lawsuits like these to go after gun shops, including stores in other states with more permissive gun laws. The lawsuits also are a way to supplement the regulatory work done by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which lacks the staffing and budget to conduct frequent inspections of gun dealers.

Webster, who researches gun policy, said he has found a significant reduction in guns that are recovered from crime scenes soon after being bought legally — a sign of straw purchasing — after these crackdowns in other states. Research also has shown that only a minority of licensed gun dealers account for a large share of the guns recovered in crimes.

Webster said it’s difficult to say what effect the Maryland lawsuit will have, especially since Maryland already has fairly strict gun regulations.

“I would suspect that this will have a chilling effect and dealers are going to take notice,” he said. “They know that Maryland has an attorney general who is willing to take these actions, that the laws are on the books for them to use them.”