Gun dealer may have prevented mass shooting
John Downs, owner of Downs Bait and Guns, looked up and down James Howard, who had just passed a background check for the purchase of a rifle and decided to not complete the sale, according to KTLA;
“From what I know of the circumstances, I believe [Downs] did prevent a mass shooting that was probably going to occur at (Ohio University) in Athens,” said Hocking County Sheriff’s Office Sheriff Lanny North. “[Howard] had an enormous amount of ammunition he was going to purchase, shotgun shells and 22-caliber rifle ammunition.”
In fact, Downs was so sure that Howard was a risk, when Howard returned to the store after he was denied the gun purchase, Downs turned off the lights, locked the door and got his customers on the floor, while he loaded some guns to protect himself.
According to NBC4i, earlier that day, the 25-year-old student had assaulted a staff member at the college. He was arrested at another store for burglary. He was buying ammunition for a shotgun he had just bought.
Howard had been previously admitted to a mental health facility, but that didn’t raise a flag on his NICS background check. Only a gun dealer with a conscience prevented the arming of a nutcase. And no one had to write a new law.
Category: Guns
I’m sure that many times there are real people who just do what’s right and we never hear about them. I’m also sure that the liberal mess media will stay as silent as they can about this because it doesn’t fit their stereotype of Gun Owners or their political agenda. One friend of mine who has been a licensed FFL Dealer for a while tells me that he has refused to sell to some customers more than a few times because of their actions and attitudes despite their passing the NICS check. I’m sure that this happens far more often than we think.
Thank you, Mr. Downs, for using common sense instead of looking at another sale. Who knows how many lives he may have saved by that “bad feeling” he had about Howard.
But but but the SJW’s say you can’t discriminate against a customer, you have to sell them the product regardless!
/SARC/!!!!
If he was Muslim he would be under a DOJ investigation right now.
If the denied guy had been a black man, the shop would be burned down and the media would be broadcasting yet more agitprop aimed at getting cops killed.
I have zero doubt about that. Obama and Co would be looking into civil rights violations before he even found a lawyer.
I had an acquaintance in graduate school that wanted to buy a surplus, disabled automatic weapon. To do that he needed a couple of affidavits swearing as to his character and fitness to own such a thing. His friends wouldn’t do it, because they were afraid they’d hear about it on the news.
It was one of very few responsible decisions that group made.
“You didn’t stop that.”
What’s really crazy is that when I brought this up as a solution to preventing mass shootings and guns landing in the hands of nutters, Hondo shouted me down saying how illegal this was and how it would never work. Crazy that we are now all congratulating this gun broker.
And if I remember the original discussion, that case involved a member of a religious or ethnic minority who wasn’t obviously acting disturbed. This guy was neither minority nor (apparently) acting stable, so the situations are not directly comparable.
Given today’s legal climate, it’s entirely possible the shop owner may yet get some legal blowback here. Civil Rights Era laws and the courts interpretation of same make it very difficult for a businessman doing business with the public to refuse service if there is any hint that the individual involved may be a member of a protected class that has historically experienced discrimination. Both race and religion qualify as protected classes.
In this case, the guy appears to be a white male. My guess is that no “social justice” group will deign to involve themselves in this case for precisely that reason – probably not even the ACLU.
No, it was in regards to Dylann Roof. A white male that looked obviously disturbed.
Interesting. I just reviewed the comments on all five of the articles here at TAH concerning Dylann Roof.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=60448
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=60453
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=60460
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=60563
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=60808
I didn’t see any such exchange between us there. In fact, I don’t believe I saw any comments by you on any of the five Dylann Roof articles. But maybe I missed it.
Wanna try again?
It was one about where Jonn wanted to have an adult conversation about gun control. Jonn actually responded to me in the comments, so that’s pretty rare. And then I got Ex-PH2 all fired up because she was defending Roof’s crazy haircut. I’m not positive if there is anyway for me to go back through all the treads or not, please enlighten me if there is.
Well, you could try using the site’s search function. That’s how I found the five Dylann Roof articles I list above – by searching on the phrase “Dylann Roof”. It took a few minutes. The rest of the time was spent going through comments.
The exchange you are probably thinking about is in comments here:
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=60531
The basic article’s subject is NOT Roof; rather, it discussed Little Marty O’Malley’s knee-jerk reaction to same as a way to justify “more effective gun control”. Jonn took O’Malley to task for that idiocy. Roof was only one of multiple examples Jonn used. You were the only one there who seemed to want to co-opt the discussion into one about Roof. (I was also in error – I thought the discussion you mentioned occurred on a different thread.)
For what it’s worth: I agree that a business owner should be able to tell a prospective customer to take a hike for pretty much any reason he likes. However, if you run a business that’s open to the public – like, say, a gun shop – then Federal and state anti-discrimination laws put limits on the owner’s right to refuse business. “Public establishment” and “interstate commerce” become operative. Race/religion/ethnicity/color/national origin are Federally protected classes regarding public establishments and their customers; state law may establish others. Discrimination against protected classes is prohibited.
A business owner who refuses to do business with a customer had best have a damn good rationale for doing so – like the guy’s drunk and disorderly, or is acting disoriented or psychotic. “I didn’t like the guy’s/gal’s haircut” or “I just thought he looked ‘off’ ” probably aren’t good enough reasons. If not, they’ll eventually end up in court – and the cost of defending the resulting lawsuit suit may well be enough to put them out of business, regardless of whether or not they end up paying damages.
But that is literally what happened here! The store owner got a bad vibe from the guy and said no. And now everyone is congratulating him. And he does have a reason not to sell to someone, he doesn’t believe he is of sound mind. Just like bartenders get to decide when you’re drunk and don’t get any more drinks, gun brokers can decide that someone is giving them the heebee jeebees and not sell them guns and ammo. No new laws necessary.
Yes, here the gun shop owner got lucky. The guy to whom he refused service was (1) of the majority race, and (2) was indeed unstable.
Had the individual been of any religious or ethnic minority, the shop owner likely would have been sued – and lost his livelihood, either as part of a judgement or indirectly to legal fees.
Here, the business owner guessed right and did the right thing. But he was taking one helluva legal risk to do so.
The example of the bartender cutting off the drunk customer is not at all applicable. The law recognizes that as acceptable – and in many states, that’s actually something the bartender is required to do. But in that case, the individual has demonstrated by conduct, not by mere casual appearance that they are no longer fully mentally responsible. Merely having a goofy-looking haircut doesn’t do the same.
A suggestion: next time, use the search function with your screen name as search string. The article you were looking for was near the top of the 2nd page when I did that.
Thanks for the tip. It’ll come in handy.
To address a few points, the haircut thing was a rather obvious joke and went on super long just because Ex-PH2 could NOT let it go. But let’s all agree that it made Roof look like a nutbag.
Secondly, what I am talking about is a customer’s conduct in the store. The conversation he has with the shopkeeper, his actions while in the store, their general demeanor. If the customer is acting shady, that’s all that needs to be taken into account. What is different is if a store gets a rep because they won’t sell to any latinos because the shop owner is a racist bastard, that’s a different situation and would definitely fall under the umbrella of discrimination. I believe that if the shop owner has good reason to deny the customer the ability to purchase said items, their likelihood of facing litigation is very low.
No, a bad haircut makes someone look like a tool. It has no impact on his/her mental abilities.
Images can be deceiving. Consider this one:
Aging, overweight hippie at a Bernie Sanders rally, right? Or maybe at an OWS rally? Or, perhaps, a union organizer?
Hardly. The image is of Rick Rescorla at the WTC on 9/11.
Man, you’re really caught up on this haircut thing, arn’t you? Why is everyone defending this guy?
No. I just detest people who value form over function, or who make snap judgements over appearances.
When one does that, one is being intellectually lazy. Judging someone’s mental ability, stability, or character based on their physical appearance is at best iffy, and at worst foolish.
The owner got a bad vibe, and through luck, the grace of god, or whatever, it was the right call. The fact that the guy came back agitated and hostile proved the owner right. It could’ve just as easily been a *insert protected class here* individual coming back with an ACLU lawyer.
I guess we’ll never know.
Sorry it took so long. I had to scroll through every post since June!
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=60531#comments
Yep. And that article isn’t about Dylann Roof – it’s about “Little Whining Marty O’Malley” and his using the violent crimes of a bigoted madman to score “political points” to bolster his proposal unnecessary additional gun control laws.
O’Malley’s desired end state is (1) few firearms in private hands, and (2) those that are, registered with the local government. I actually think he’d like to make the latter legally mandatory.
Yeah, it’s what is in the comments that are appropriate here. Jonn wanted to have a grown up conversation about gun control, and the idea of gun shop owners showing more discretion to whom they sell firearms was an idea that was floated.
Dylann Roof looks disturbed in photos that he posted on online, photos that the shop owner would have no reasonable expectation to have seen. He could have very easily looked like the kid next door at the time of the purchase. Nutters look just like everyone else most of the time.
Not with that haircut.
Have you seen what haircuts look like these days? Get outside much?
Kids these days with their hair and their music. What is the world coming to, right?
Let’s talk about YOUR haircut, should it preclude you owning a gun?
It hasn’t yet.
Of note in the NBC affiliate’s article: “Police say the burglary charge stems from his alleged assault of a staff member. The weapons under disability charge is because Howard was in possession of a firearm after being previously admitted to a mental health facility.”
Ok, so the local PD was able to determine that old boy had a history including admission to a mental health facility, but the chuckleheads at BATF running the NICS system didn’t? No wonder we’re up a creek without a paddle as a country. We have politicians who want to pass more laws and regulations, while not bothering to make sure that the existing system does its job.
The (admittedly small) tinfoil-hatter in me can quite handily be persuaded that the BATF glosses over these flaws in applicants to let guys like Howard slip through the cracks and cause trouble. They would be hoping for an incident that would cause more public uproar to justify passing another restrictive bill. But, the somewhat larger practical thinker in me is a bit more rooted in the belief that it’s just more bureaucratic incompetence at the federal level.
More likely some of these things get reported at a state level but the state doesn’t update to BATFE – seems to me that was the problem with the Va Tech shooter.
I know that I am late to this party. The question that I see- When and how should responsible citizens (or store owners) keep the bad people that we encounter from causing problems in society? If we fail in this, we will continue to loose rights. It will not be easy to make the call in the small time we would have (similar to shoot, don’t shoot). This responsibility should not be legislated but rather a result of good judgement, just as a self defense shooting should be an exercise in good judgement not fear or retribution.