KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City has reached a settlement with a local gun store that will require the shop to pay $150,000, implement training to prevent straw purchasing and participate in a monitoring program.
The settlement comes after a lawsuit filed in 2020 in Jackson County, Missouri, alleged a group of firearm businesses formed a trafficking ring that provided guns to known felons.
“Today’s settlement is an important step in reducing the flow of illegal guns into our city,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a statement. “As we work to save the lives of Kansas Citians — fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, and sadly, children —reducing the flow of illegal guns will remain a priority.”
Violence prevention advocates are taking a more tempered approach in their response to the case, noting that while gun violence is out of control in Kansas City, it’s too early to say whether such litigation will have an impact on the problem.
The suit took aim at a gun trafficking scheme led by James Samuels, a former Kansas City Fire Department captain, who was sentenced in 2021 to six years in federal prison for illegally selling dozens of guns. But it went beyond him, claiming Nevada-based manufacturer Jimenez Arms and several local gun dealers were also responsible.
According to the lawsuit, three local gun stores aided the scheme: CR Sales Firearms, Conceal & Carry and Mission Ready Gunworks.
CR Sales Firearms, in Independence, is the only one of the three still in business, according to records from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The settlement agreement says the store will pay $150,000 in damages to the city. It will also provide training to identify straw purchasing and gun trafficking to sales staff, video record all firearms sales and transfers, and impose a maximum of two handgun purchases or transfers per month for new customers. An independent monitor will be able to make unannounced site visits and access customer profiles as well as write an annual report on their findings which will be shared with the city through 2027.
If the store violates the terms of the agreement, the company can be taken back to court.
As part of the settlement, CR Sales Firearms denies the lawsuit’s allegations and makes no admission of liability. An attorney for the store did not respond to a request for comment.
Everytown Law, a branch of the national nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, filed the suit alongside the city.
“Gun stores have the ability to save lives by enforcing strong policies and procedures to prevent gun trafficking,” said Alla Lefkowitz, senior director of affirmative litigation at Everytown Law. “Guns used in crimes often make their way from the legal market to the illegal market via gun trafficking and straw-purchasing. The industry has an important role to play in preventing such diversion. We’re pleased that the City and the gun shop have settled this case in a way that will prevent illegal gun purchases and gun trafficking.”
According to the lawsuit, the gun stores “facilitated the illegal transfer of dozens of guns to and from Samuels.”
Jimenez Arms guns “were frequently (and disproportionately) recovered at crime scenes in the Kansas City,” the lawsuit also said.
Jimenez Arms filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and acquired a license to start a new manufacturing company under the name J.A. Industries. The city, Everytown and the State of Illinois sued the ATF for granting a license to J.A. Industries and in March 2022, the federal agency issued a notice of revocation. A hearing on the license was held and a ruling by the ATF is pending, said John Ham, a spokesman with the ATF’s Kansas City Field Division.
According to a Federal Bureau of Prisons database, Samuels was released in January. His sentence was reduced through the First Step Act, a bill signed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, aimed at decreasing the federal prison population.
Rosanna Smart, co-director of RAND’s Gun Policy in America initiative, said in recent years, Missouri has been “off the charts in terms of the gun violence problem and really in need of solutions.” Filing a lawsuit was an interesting approach, she said. But because similar litigation isn’t common, not much research exists to examine its impact.
“It doesn’t mean it’s not effective, I think we just don’t know,” Smart said. “I think it’s a big open question.”
In the time since the lawsuit was filed, Kansas City has suffered its deadliest and second deadliest years on record for homicides. In 2020, the city recorded 182 killings, followed by 171 last year. So far this year, there have been 25 homicides, of which 92% were a result of gun violence, according to data from the Kansas City Police Department.
Rosilyn Temple, founder of KC Mothers in Charge, said the gun problem in Kansas City “is out of control.”
“At this point in time, I don’t think we even need these stores in our community that sell guns,” Temple said. “Our homicide rates are so bad every year.”
Damon Daniel, president of AdHoc Group Against Crime, said he hopes the lawsuit’s settlement sets a precedent for other gun stores “to take more responsibility as it relates to who they sell it to.”
More broadly, Damon said he supports stricter laws when it comes to background checks and permits. But he added, “We have legislators that just don’t understand the issue related to gun violence, not only here in Missouri, but in America, period.”
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