Bloomberg investigation cited in fairgrounds gun show debate

[Pete123]

Bloomberg investigation cited in fairgrounds gun show debate

 Joey Garrison, jgarrison@tennessean.com7:32 p.m. CST December 8, 2015

 

 

 

Nashville’s Metro-owned fairgrounds was among a handful of gun show sites nationwide where then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration six years ago sent undercover private investigators to seek to document the illegal sale of guns.

 

What they reported back is now being cited by members of Nashville’s Metro Board of Fair Commissioners as they defend their controversial action last week to halt future gun shows at The Fairgrounds Nashville until gun show operators agree to new safety guidelines and other rules.

New York City outlined the findings of its four-month investigation in a 36-page report called "Gun Show Undercover," which was a project spearheaded by Bloomberg, who for years has been one of the nation's most outspoken gun control advocates.

The highly disputed investigation — one that gun enthusiasts have blasted as unfair, biased and inaccurate — consisted of sting operations at seven gun shows across the county, including Bill Goodman’s Gun and Knife Shows at the Fairgrounds Nashville on Aug. 8-9, 2009. Investigators concealed hidden cameras in baseball caps or purses and concealed audio recording devices in their watches as they interacted with gun show vendors and set out to purchase guns.

The report cited two alleged instances at the Nashville fairgrounds in which dealers appeared to knowingly sell guns to buyers with questionable backgrounds. The investigation also singled out four alleged examples in which dealers appeared to sell guns to other individuals in order to allow the buyer to avoid background checks.

 

 

Evidence in the report included one video of an undercover investigator seeking to buy a Glock 27 gun at the Nashville fairgrounds by having a female friend fill out paperwork as part of a gun background check. The buyer is seen alerting the dealer that he’s seeking to avoid filling out paperwork, but the dealer checks the ID of the woman and sells the gun to her anyway.

The Bloomberg report was not mentioned by fair board members before they voted 3-0, with one member abstaining, last week to stop holding future gun shows unless gun operators agree to new safety rules. Instead, fair commissioners largely cited testimony from an assistant Davidson County district attorney, who singled out three cases she said linked guns purchased at the fairgrounds to felons.

“I was surprised not to know about it,” said fair board chairman Ned Horton, who said he learned about the report after the vote. He’s now singling it out to defend the board’s action.

“It is a pretty solid overview of how guns can get into the hands of people who shouldn’t legally be buying them," he said.

“He’s kept saying, ‘There’s no problems. There’s no problems,’ ” Horton said, referring to Goodman’s gun show promoter David Goodman. “And we’re presented with information that differs from that. There are problems, and we’d like to eliminate problems of this kind for public safety reasons.”

 

But Goodman said findings in the report are false and that dealers cited in the investigation were never found to have done anything wrong. He objected to the undercover tactics, including the fact that the investigators were agents paid by New York City.

He argued that full video footage of sting purchases wasn’t shown, and he accused Bloomberg himself of unlawfully purchasing guns across state lines.

“That was a long time ago,” Goodman said. “We’ve already met several times with the (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) and nobody was convicted of anything. Nobody went to jail. Nothing ever happened because we weren’t doing anything wrong.

“That’s bull****,” he said of Bloomberg’s tactics in the report. “To say ‘Hey this is what’s going on at gun shows,’ when come to find out people in the video were actually agents of Mayor Bloomberg … If anybody broke the law, it was Mayor Bloomberg, not us.”

Michael Knight, a spokesman for the ATF's Nashville division,confirmed that the agency has had meetings with Goodman but was not able to elaborate on what was discussed .

Knight also said some of the aspects of the report dealt with “ethical instead of legal” questions, and would not have fallen under ATF's jurisdiction. He characterized some findings in the report as “subjective” but declined to offer additional details because it is not an ATF report.

“If all instances are true — and we’ll give it at face value that all instances are true — that’s a small percentage of the big picture of gun issues in this country,” Knight said, though later adding that even one incident that results in a tragic event is an ATF priority.

Bloomberg report slammed

Bloomberg’s administration released the report in 2009 to further his argument that illegally purchased guns have entered New York and made the city less safe. Bloomberg has not been mayor of New York since 2013.

Upon its release, the Bloomberg report was immediately slammed by the National Rifle Association, which accused the New York mayor of “grandstanding” during what was an election year. Gun rights advocates also asked why Bloomberg hadn’t worked with law enforcement officials to make arrests on the spot.

John Harris, president of the Tennessee Firearms Association, said findings in the 2009 investigation were contested because of Bloomberg's “open bias” on guns and gun shows.

“I also seem to recall that there were no enforcement actions taken (by) any law enforcement agency based on or related to that Bloomberg report,” Harris said. “It was entirely, I would submit, essentially prejudicial in terms of the conclusions that it drew.”

Goodman of Bill Goodman’s Gun and Knife Shows, one of two gun show operators at the fairgrounds, has said his operation goes beyond what is required by law. All vendors must be federally licensed and therefore conduct background checks that are designed to prevent sales to people who aren’t authorized to buy them, he said.

Under federal law, private sellers — who are assumed to be occasional sellers and hobbyists — aren’t required to give background checks but must not knowingly sell guns to prohibited purchasers.

Details of stings

The 2009 investigation of Bill Goodman’s Gun and Knife Show at the fairgrounds found 17 federally licensed dealers and 16 private sellers out of 33 vendors that investigators tallied. Goodman said that at the time of the investigation he did not have the same federally licensed policy that he does today.

The Bloomberg investigation conducted what it called “integrity tests” of both federally licensed dealers and private dealers.

 

• One set of sting operations sought to simulate buyers who sellers would have reason to believe are prohibited purchasers. This type of simulation was performed on private sellers. At the Nashville fairgrounds, the investigation reported Bill Goodman’s Gun and Knife Shows passed one private seller integrity test and failed two of them — meaning that in two out of three cases guns were allegedly sold to people who the sellers would have reason to believe were not authorized to buy guns. Investigators asked about background checks and told sellers that they "probably couldn't pass one."
• The second type of sting operations reviewed federally licensed dealers by seeking to stage “straw purchasers,” a federal felony that occurs when a dealer allows someone to fill out paperwork and undergo background checks for another person who is the actual buyer. This sting involved two undercover investigators, one man and one woman. The male investigator played the role of someone who wanted to purchase a handgun, but appeared to be unable to do so for an unstated reason. The female investigator played the role of a “straw purchaser,” someone who appeared to be buying the gun on behalf of the man. At the Nashville fairgrounds, the report claims that the gun show operator failed all four of the integrity tests of federally licensed dealers.  

Among all seven gun shows tested nationally, the Bloomberg investigation alleged that sellers — combining both federally licensed and private dealers — failed 74 percent of all integrity tests.

In addition to the Nashville fairgrounds, other gun shows that Bloomberg’s administration executed sting operations at were in Smyrna; Dayton, Ohio; Niles, Ohio; Sharonville, Ohio, Columbus, Ohio; and Reno, Nev.

The report said these shows were each in states that, at the time, supplied guns trafficked across state lines at the highest rates. To “narrow the field,” the report said the City of New York reviewed a range of other factors, including proximity to urban areas with gang violence.

The investigation used a team of 40 investigators from a private firm that included former law enforcement officials, but none were still working for law enforcement agencies at the time.

This past weekend, Bill Goodman’s Gun and Knife Shows held the final two gun shows at the Nashville fairgrounds under action taken by the fair board. The board voted to halt gun shows that are more than 30 days out until operators agree to new standards for shows. These could include signage that states gun sales require background checks, additional police security in parking lots and liability coverage paid by vendors that protects the city. Goodman has opposed many of these proposed measures.

Legal questions, however, have clouded the board’s action and some Metro Council members are working to fight the move.

THE TENNESSEAN

Mayor Megan Barry has legal questions on halting fairgrounds gun shows

 

Mayor Megan Barry, who has not taken a stand on the issue, has asked the Metro Department of Law to review the legality of the board’s action. A group of council members has introduced a resolution, set for consideration Tuesday, that would ask the fair board to overturn its action.

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2015 by Pete123

[Grand Torino]

If all that is true it reminds me of something that happened in Arizona. It used to be that you could go out in the desert and shoot most anywhere. You can't do it anymore cause gun owners would trash the areas and never pick their crap up after they finished so they ruined it for themselves. 

[Pete123]

I'm surprised this isn't getting more interest from TGO.

 

Bloomberg acted badly at a Nashville gun show.  Even the ATF indicated that the gun show didn't do anything wrong and the folks board at the fair, who cancelled the show, are quoting something from many years ago as proof that they are right.

[leroy]

Pete...

I think the reason for the seeming "nobody cares" thing about the Nashville Fairgrounds is that these idiots have cut their noses off to spite their faces... There are plenty of close venues that will take these shows in without these silly restrictions... The fact is that inner city Nashville is a sewer just like all the other "inner city" spots run by these idiots... Let em starve... No one goin to put up with this silly stuff... They simply dont have to...

 

leroy

Edited December 9, 2015 by leroy

[btq96r]

They'll grasp at straws and use whatever they can, throwing in page after page, knowing most people are far too lazy to read past a headline and the first two paragraphs. Bury them with statistics and studies is a political move that's been perfected over time.

 

Also, as we've talked about in other threads, the land grab is the primary objective.  Barry and cadre are probably giddy that they get to score a win against guns in the process, but that's just an added benefit.  The true goal is to get the land, hand out crony capital contracts, and set up housing that eventually brings in more federal money from all the usual sources to Nashville.

[jgradyc]

 The true goal is to get the land...

This.

[DaveTN]

Well…. I never thought the Mayor of NYC could stick it to us in Tennessee; guess I underestimated him.
(Although I could really care less about the gun show at the fairgrounds.)

I was under the impression they wanted to close the Fairgrounds and put up apartments, and Metro told them no?? So I guess they are trying to show a bigger loss?

[K191145]

Well…. I never thought the Mayor of NYC could stick it to us in Tennessee; guess I underestimated him.
(Although I could really care less about the gun show at the fairgrounds.)

I was under the impression they wanted to close the Fairgrounds and put up apartments, and Metro told them no?? So I guess they are trying to show a bigger loss?

 

Who wants to move to that part of town anyway? It's been a while since i've been to a show at the fairgrounds but that whole area didn't seem like prime real estate to me. Those who live there need to go to the show out of necessity.  

[Pete123]

Personally, I'm incensed that the New York d-bag stuck his nose into Nashville business.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Pete123

[Oh Shoot]

I was under the impression they wanted to close the Fairgrounds and put up apartments, and Metro told them no?? So I guess they are trying to show a bigger loss?

 

Now more complicated than that legally, seems,  and I wonder how much John Harris might have had to do with it, even though she doesn't cite 39-17-1314, something else John thought had legs to stop it.

 

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2015/12/03/barry-has-legal-questions-halting-fairgrounds-gun-shows/76722214/

 

- OS

[TMF]

I'm surprised this isn't getting more interest from TGO.

Bloomberg acted badly at a Nashville gun show. Even the ATF indicated that the gun show didn't do anything wrong and the folks board at the fair, who cancelled the show, are quoting something from many years ago as proof that they are right.

There were threads about this years ago when a Bloomberg pulled this. One long one if I recall. The outrage was strong.

However, this isn't about Bloomberg. It's about Nashville doing what it's going to do, and using this nonsense as a small part of their scheme. The same scheme which plagues every large city in the US. Demonize gun owners; ignore violent crime; white people are racist; free lunch; vote for me; etc.


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