KC couple’s win over rogue gun dealers shows some weapons are illegal — even in Missouri
Even in wild-west, no-holds-barred, gun-happy Missouri, it turns out that some weapons are actually illegal. Thank the heavens for that.
And surely the most ardent Second Amendment defenders should be happy for Kansas City’s Alvino and Beverly Crawford — and for their extraordinary legal victory this week against rogue gun dealers tied to their son’s 2016 murder here.
“This is not a Second Amendment issue,” Alvino Crawford, a gun owner, told The Star. “Somebody violated the law. It’s like anything else — they should be held accountable for it.”
The Crawfords’ lawsuit has done just that. Along with the added ammunition of a companion lawsuit by the city of Kansas City, the Crawfords’ lawsuit led to a settlement in Jackson County Court in which gun dealer Green Tip Arms has been completely disarmed. The Arizona company with ties to Raytown and Missouri has agreed to stop selling guns, surrender its firearms license and be dissolved as a company.
Moreover, just days after a Jackson County judge ruled this month that the Crawfords’ lawsuit could go forward, Jimenez Arms, Inc., the gun manufacturer involved in supplying the gun that killed Alvino Dwight Crawford Alvino, filed for liquidation under the U.S. bankruptcy code.
Crawford just wishes all this could have been brought up at the Democratic presidential debate Wednesday night in Nevada, home of Jimenez Arms. “It would’ve been great to have had this matter brought forward to those candidates who were on stage, and even to our president,” he told The Star.
The lawsuit alleged that Green Tip Arms and Jimenez Arms aided and abetted an illegal, unlicensed gun trafficking ring allegedly run by former Kansas City firefighter James Samuels. Samuels is scheduled to go to trial in federal court in Kansas City June 1.
The lawsuit alleges Jimenez Arms “sold firearms directly to Samuels despite clear signs that Samuels was acting as an unlicensed dealer.”
Jimenez Arms had asked that the lawsuit be dismissed for two reasons: first, that the Missouri legislature had immunized the gun industry against “public nuisance” lawsuits. The judge ruled the industry is not immune from claims of “unlawful design, marketing, manufacture, distribution or sale of firearms or ammunition.” Its second argument was that Missouri courts had no standing in a case involving a third-party out-of-state distributor. In ruling against that argument, the judge said the lawsuit’s allegations “satisfy the requirement that Jimenez Arms knew or reasonably should have known that its alleged negligent acts could have effects in the state of Missouri.”
Hallelujah.
Such stunning victories as the Crawfords’ against law-skirting gun purveyors are exceedingly rare. This one should reverberate around the nation.
The lawsuits were both filed in conjunction with Everytown Law, the litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, which deserves a good share of the credit.
But it would not have come without the courage and defiance of the Crawfords, whose pain from the July 5, 2016, murder of their son on Forest Avenue might otherwise have been paralyzing.
Instead, it was mobilizing.
“I felt rage,” Alvino Crawford told The Star after filing suit last June. But money was never part of their equation, and was not part of the settlement. “When we win this,” he explained, “our desire is to have some way to memorialize my son.”
Now that they have indeed won — and while their lawsuit against Samuels goes on and awaits Jimenez Arms’ bankruptcy proceedings — Crawford says he’d like to see Missouri adopt commonsense red flag laws denying guns to those deemed a danger to others.
“That needs to get done,” he said. “That’s a basic thing that should happen to help protect all Missourians. “If we can build from there to make some impact at the national level, that would be great as well.”
This lawsuit, which should be an inspiration to all who seek sanity in gun laws, is surely something to build on.