3 MD Gun Stores Sued Over Illegal Gun Sales That Drove Crime In DC, MD

ROCKVILLE, MD — Three licensed gun dealers in Montgomery County were hit with a lawsuit Tuesday claiming the shops trafficked in illegal gun sales, which fueled a rise in gun violence in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

The lawsuit alleges that Engage Armament, LLC (Engage), United Gun Shop (United), and Atlantic Guns, Inc. (Atlantic), all located in Rockville, ignored clear warning signs that Demetrius Minor was engaging in illegal straw purchases. That is defined as buying firearms with the intent of transferring them to people not legally entitled to possess them.

Court documents said the gun stores sold Minor 34 semiautomatic pistols over seven months to ;his relative, Donald Willis, a District resident with a record of violent felonies.

While Minor was prosecuted in DC on federal gun trafficking charges in December 2022, the three firearms dealers — entities meant to be “the first line of defense against straw purchasing” —have not been held responsible for their illegal conduct and role in fueling gun violence, the lawsuit said.

“Federally licensed gun dealers know the law and they know what to look for to spot possible illegal trafficking. As this lawsuit demonstrates, gun dealers cannot just choose to ignore these warning signs and guardrails,” said Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown. “Let this be a warning to other dealers who put public safety at risk to make a profit: We are watching, and we will hold you accountable for illegal conduct that fuels gun violence across our region.”

Brown, DC Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb, and Everytown Law filed the lawsuit. The District of Columbia and Maryland officials want to force the gun stores to stop straw sales, and asked for reasonable monetary damages for the harm inflicted by the illegal conduct.

“The level of gun violence in the District, and the devastating impact it has on victims, families, and our community as a whole, is unacceptable,” said Schwalb. “This is a regional problem that requires a regional solution, as far too often, guns purchased in Maryland and Virginia are trafficked across our borders and end up at crime scenes in D.C. Today we are holding these firearms dealers, businesses that chose profits over safety, accountable for their clear negligence, blatant disregard for the law, and pain they have inflicted across the District and DMV.”

What Is A “Straw Sale”?

A straw sale occurs when a federal firearms licensee sells a firearm to a buyer (the straw purchaser), who is buying the gun for a third party, the true buyer, who is often prohibited from legally purchasing a gun on their own, authorities said. These illegal sales allow the true buyer to obtain firearms without having to present identification or undergo a background check and allow the dealer to make money from a sale it could not have legally made.

Dealers such as Engage, United, and Atlantic have a legal obligation to prevent illegal purchasing and ignored signs of straw purchasing and gun trafficking, such as bulk purchases and repetitive buying within a short time, the complaint said. Engage, United, and Atlantic repeatedly sold Minor many duplicate or near-duplicate easily concealable pistols from April 6 to Oct. 5, 2021. Almost immediately, Minor transferred the gums to others who were prohibited from purchasing firearms.

The illegal firearm sales contributed to gun violence in the region, the attorneys general said. At least nine of the guns sold to Minor were found at crime scenes in DC and adjoining Maryland suburbs, as well as from fugitives with active warrants for violent offenses.

These include a gun recovered by DC’s Metropolitan Police Department in November 2022 from the DC hotel room of a Prince George’s County man also in possession of an illegal large-capacity magazine, a gun found in May 2022 by the Hyattsville Police Department at the home of a stabbing suspect, and another recovered by Montgomery County Police in July 2022 from the Adelphi residence of a criminal defendant. Many of the remaining guns are still unaccounted for, the lawsuit said.

The full complaint is available here.