LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Barry Laws cleared the chamber on his handgun, setting the bullet to the side. With his finger, he traced the metal innards.
"There's no magazine in there," he said, moving toward the slide, "right now this gun is unloaded, we do not call it safe."
He was a handgun safety instructor in California before running Openrange in Oldham County for 18 years.
"I thought, 'geez, I need a better place to live that's more friendly to firearms,' so I moved to Kentucky," he recalled. As of Dec 31, 2023, he's retired from the business.
Now, he's concerned about a lawsuit filed against a former competitor, River City Firearms. "If there's something that's not a law, and there's something we're not trained upon, no that's not fair game for a lawsuit," Laws said.
The lawsuit, representing victims and families of people lost in the mass shooting at Old National Bank, claims a customer in the store noticed the gunman, Connor Sturgeon, acting strange when he bought the rifle later used at the bank. So strange, that customer considered calling police. "And if it was that terrible, why didn't they call the police?" Laws wondered, flipping through a copy of the lawsuit.
Laws acknowledged the pain felt by those who suffered from the mass shooting, but placed responsibility on the shooter, not the store who sold him the gun. Using a mission statement from the ATF, the lawsuit attempts to place responsibility on River City Firearms by stating Federal Firearms Licensees are the "first line of defense in preventing firearms from getting into the hands of criminals."
However, the ATF doesn't regulate gun stores on preventing sales to someone who's mentally ill. They're checking for other negligent behaviors, such as "not doing a background check, transferring a firearm to somebody who's prohibited from possessing one, not maintaining safe inventory, not responding to law enforcement's request for information," Shawn Morrow said, Special Agent in Charge at Louisville's ATF branch.
The only training they provide regarding buyer behavior, Laws explained, is on preventing straw purchases. "As far as psychology training," he said, "no there's absolutely nothing."
Ultimately, it's up to each individual business to decide who they will sell to.
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