Before the local and national press gloat too loudly over their chance to report that a federal judge has upheld revocation of a federal firearms license (FFL) to Tacoma’s Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply, they need to get their story straight…or at least tell all of it.
Right now, reporters are telling half of a story, which is almost as bad as reporting no story at all.
True, in a ruling handed down last Friday by U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, the government was found to have properly revoked the FFL of former Bull’s Eye owner Brian Borgelt. Unfortunately for Kris Kindschuh, the current owner and operator of the gun shop, now known officially as Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply LLC, the Associated Press, Tacoma News Tribune, Seattle Times and on-line Seattle Post-Intelligencer are not telling the rest of the story, as the late Paul Harvey put it.
And what is the rest of this story?
Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply, located where it has always been, on Tacoma’s Puyallup Avenue, is still in business, and business is thriving. Kindschuh reported Monday afternoon that his FFL – the one he already had when he purchased the business in 2003 from embattled former proprietor Brian Borgelt – had just been renewed for three more years. This FFL is good through Aug. 1, 2012, and Kindschuh made it clear his doors will stay open. The story so alarmed Kindschuh that he faxed a copy of the just-renewed FFL to my attention for a report in an upcoming issue of Gun Week.
Malvo pulled a life sentence and Muhammad is scheduled to be executed in November for the string of killings that terrorized citizens in northern Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Maryland.
His audit by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in the fall of last year was fine.
“We came through with flying colors,” he recalled.
But on Monday, almost immediately after the newspapers and Associated Press reported on the judge’s ruling, telephones began ringing at Bull’s Eye.
“Everybody wanted to know if we were still in business,” he said. “I’m working today and I’ll still be working tomorrow.”
It has been a rough ride for Kindschuh, but one that he and his employees weathered in the wake of the October 2002 rampage committed by convicted Beltway Snipers John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. The rifle they used was traced back to the Bull’s Eye and Borgelt, and a subsequent investigation by ATF found the store’s records in chaos.
Malvo later indicated during police interrogation that he had shoplifted the rifle weeks before the killings began. That the old Bull’s Eye staff under Borgelt didn’t notice the gun missing was symptomatic of a larger problem that involved horribly sloppy record keeping.
It was later discovered that Muhammad and Malvo had earlier obtained another rifle, a .308-caliber Remington, by means of what amounted to a straw purchase by another man. But that rifle was abandoned one night near a freeway south of Tacoma in what may have been a botched attempt to shoot at passing cars, and it sat in a Pierce County Sheriff’s property room for months before anyone established a connection with the two gunmen.
In the midst of mounting legal troubles that also found Borgelt in trouble with the IRS, Kindschuh – a longtime friend of Borgelt – bought the business and started turning things around. Three former Bull’s Eye employees were dismissed, the shop was remodeled and expanded, and Kindschuh spent thousands of dollars on advertising “trying to counteract misinformation” in the media.
A burly, bald middle-aged family man who has a no-nonsense attitude about his business, Kindschuh was perturbed at what he sees as lazy reporting.
“They’ve got everybody thinking we’re shut down,” he said.
Borgelt still runs the gun range located in the upstairs part of the Bull’s Eye building, but he has nothing to do with the gun store. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to file income tax returns for the four years between 1997 and 2001, and was ordered to pay $230,884 in back taxes and penalties. He settled a civil lawsuit against the Bull’s Eye filed by survivors of the Beltway Sniper victims.
Malvo and Muhammad lived in the Tacoma area before beginning a string of random sniper shootings that left 10 people dead and three wounded in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. in October 2002.
Malvo pulled a life sentence and Muhammad is scheduled to be executed in November for the string of killings that terrorized citizens in northern Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Maryland.
But Kindschuh never committed any crime, and feels he is being punished for something he didn’t do. He came to the aid of a boyhood friend, bought a business that had suddenly earned a notorious reputation, turned that business around and provided jobs for some hard-working people who had absolutely nothing to do with the former operation or the murderous activities of Muhammad and Malvo that put the Tacoma gun shop on the map.
That the local press has once again erroneously given the impression that the store has lost its FFL, when in actuality it is Borgelt’s license revocation that has been upheld, is one more reason for gun owners, and one frustrated firearms retailer, not to trust the news media.
This is one time the press has it coming.
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Comments
My wife and I went in there about a week ago with our kids. I don't remember the guy behind the counters name. (Dark hair, glasses, Sig with Crimson Trace grips). Anyway, the service was so outstanding I bought a Ruger 10/22 from them. And even though it's a drive we'll be going back to get the wife the Sig 229 that she wants. Whatever they've done there it's working. In a market filled with elitist gun snobs behind the counter, they've managed to break the mold.
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