Dayton Gun Show Illustrates Deadly Risk Of Unregulated Sales

Nov 25, 2009

Washington, DC - On August 15, Colin Goddard walked into Bill Goodman’s Gun & Knife Show in Dayton with an Ohio resident.  Goddard, 24, was shot four times at Virginia Tech.  He was visiting gun shows with a hidden camera, to document how easy it is for a purchaser to buy a gun without showing identification and without being subject to a Brady criminal background check. 

And buy guns they certainly did at Goodman’s show, as did the killer of a former Dayton Police Officer, Mary Beall, and undercover investigators for New York City earlier this year, and a member of a violent gang member in Dayton arrested just this week who has reportedly told police he obtained his semiautomatic handgun through Goodman’s show.

The Colin Goddard video is below as well as at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baPgr_tw79Q.

“There is a continuing pattern here of quick and easy sales of devastating firearms,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.  “In Dayton, it’s this gun show.  In other cities across America, it’s some other gun show.  The man who runs the Dayton gun shows says he’s obeying the law, and technically, he’s right.  But the loophole in the law is killing people after sales at his gun shows and others.”

“Ohioans are threatened by firearm sales that proceed without a background check,” said Toby Hoover, executive Director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence. “We have seen a police officer lose her life because of such sales, and now we see gang members arming themselves because of them.  It's time to close the gun show loophole.”

In the Brady Campaign undercover project visit to Goodman’s show, Goddard spotted an Egyptian AK-47 variant, made by the Maadi company.  The gun came with a 30-round magazine.

“You want $660 for it?” Goddard asked the elderly man behind a table.

“Yeah, out the door,” the seller said. 

The seller asked for a driver’s license, but Goddard’s friend said he didn’t have it.  The seller settled for the buyer answering his questions of where he lived and what his birth date was.

The same seller was featured in another undercover look at gun shows, conducted by the New York City Police Department earlier this year.  When the buyer said he probably couldn’t pass a background check, that same seller said “well, I don’t think I could either.”

The widower of Officer Beall, himself a police officer, has told the Dayton Daily News that the regulations on gun shows need to be toughened.  “I'm a firm proponent of the Second Amendment," John Beall said in October. “But it is true that the subject who killed my wife walked into Bill Goodman’s gun show, no questions asked, while under indictment… I think the United States Congress would be doing society a favor if they either closed these gun shows or put tight restrictions on them. It caused tragedy in my family.”  Mary Beall was shot and paralyzed in 2000 by Raham Twitty with an M-1 SuperEnforcer purchased at the Goodman show.  She died from complications from the shooting in 2002.

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As the nation's largest, non-partisan, grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, the Brady Campaign, with its dedicated network of Million Mom March Chapters, works to enact and enforce sensible gun laws, regulations and public policies. The Brady Campaign is devoted to creating an America free from gun violence, where all Americans are safe at home, at school, at work, and in our communities.

For continuing insight and comment on the gun issue, read Paul Helmke's blog at www.bradycampaign.org/blog/. Visit the Brady Campaign website at www.bradycampaign.org.