DC, Maryland Sue Gun Shops for Allegedly Contributing to Gun Trafficking [Video]

Attorneys general for Washington, D.C., and Maryland filed a lawsuit against three gun shops who allegedly contributed to gun trafficking in the nation’s capital.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown and Everytown Law today announced the lawsuit against three federally licensed gun dealers for “illegally selling dozens of firearms to a straw purchaser who then trafficked the weapons,” Schwalb’s office said in a press release on Tuesday.

The press release said that the gun shops—Engage Armament, LLC (Engage), United Gun Shop (United) and Atlantic Guns, Inc. (Atlantic), which are all located in Montgomery County, Maryland—”ignored clear warning signs” and sold weapons to the same man, Demetrius Minor, in 2021.

Minor was sentenced on federal gun trafficking charges in late 2022, and officials said he would take the firearms purchased from the three gun shops being sued and sell them to others illegally.