Seeks $400 Million
GA Gun Dealer Sues Bloomberg, Alleges Conspiracy
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was looking for publicity in May when he filed lawsuits against gun dealers in five states, but now his name is not only in headlines, it’s on a Georgia lawsuit charging him and several others with conspiracy to “defame, violate the law, and obscure the truth.”
Smyrna, GA, gun dealers Jay and Eric Wallace, and their company, Adventure Outdoors, struck back July 20 with the Cobb County Superior Court action in which they are seeking $400 million in damages from the defendants, including the city of New York. Represented by former Congressman Bob Barr, who was also a federal prosecutor, the plaintiffs also contend that another defendant, identified as Tanya Marie Nooner, visited the store on April 8 “to falsely and fraudulently purchase a firearm . . . by lying both orally and in written form” on the federal Form 4473. They purchased a Glock 26 pistol in that transaction.
Barr and the law offices of Edwin Marger of Jasper, GA, have also called on US Attorney David Nahmias in Atlanta and Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker to investigate Bloomberg’s “undercover sting” operation. It was that effort, conducted by so-called private investigators hired by Bloomberg and the city of New York that resulted in Bloomberg’s headline-grabbing press announcement this past Spring.
Adventure Outdoors is one of two gun shops in the greater Atlanta area that were targeted by Bloomberg’s lawsuit. The other was The Gun Store in Doraville, which is not part of this legal action.
Bloomberg’s sting operation also may have landed him in hot water with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), because it may have interfered with on-going criminal investigations.
Also named in the lawsuit were: New York Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo; Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly; New York City Criminal Justice Coordinator John Feinblatt, and the James Mintz Group, a private investigation firm.
In their lawsuit, the Wallaces contend that Bloomberg maliciously libeled and slandered them and their business through statements to the press that they knew, or should have known, were not true. The lawsuit also contends that Bloomberg traveled to Atlanta in an attempt to persuade Mayor Shirley Franklin to join in his effort.
Franklin is not a defendant in the lawsuit. She is involved with Bloomberg’s “Mayor’s Summit” campaign to stop traffic in illegal guns, according to spokeswoman Catherine Woodling.
The lawsuit was announced at a rally of support for the embattled gun shop, one of several that had been sued earlier by Bloomberg.
The Bloomberg sting operation involved so-called straw man sales, in which one person would allegedly select a gun but have a second person fill out the paperwork, ostensibly because the first person would not qualify under a NICS background check. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described the sting operation as a “simulated” straw purchase. Bloomberg had complained that many crime guns recovered in New York City come from out-of-state gun shops, like Adventure Outdoors. Bloomberg’s lawsuit contended that at least 21 firearms recovered in connection with New York crimes had originally been sold by the Smyrna retailer.
Bloomberg has been campaigning against guns for several months. He has testified in front of Congressional committees against legislation that would prohibit access to gun purchase records except in the course of an on-going criminal investigation. Big city mayors want access to those files in order to file legal actions.
However, last year, Congress outlawed so-called junk lawsuits against the gun industry.
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