The company was founded in Minnesota in 1902. It has 34 locations, mostly in the Midwest, and employs more than 8,000 people.
The suit comes during an ongoing debate in America about gun violence and who bears responsibility for gun crimes. Last week the father of a 14-year-old accused of killing two teachers and two classmates at Apalachee High School in Georgia was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors allege the father knew his son had an interest in mass shootings and in military-style rifles, which his father owned.
In Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Fleet Farm in 2022, accusing the retailer of repeatedly selling guns to straw buyers who resell them to violent criminals who cannot legally buy the weapons themselves. That case is working its way through the courts.
The lawsuit filed against Scheels focuses on Markie’s death and Ballantyne’s decision to give Markie the gun, but it also targets Scheels for what it says were lax internal practices. The suit contends Scheels failed by not “placing trigger locks or even plastic ties on the handgun to disable it, removing the magazine from the handgun so that it cannot be loaded with ammunition, and questioning customers to ascertain the legality of a potential sale.” It claims all of those practices are industry standards.
The lawsuit also alleges that in 2018, following a rash of mass shootings in the United States, stores like Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Field and Stream made changes to their firearm protocols, including not selling to anyone under 21. While there were calls for Scheels to follow a similar standard, “Scheels did nothing,” the suit said.
The suit casts Markie’s behavior as questionable enough that it should have raised concerns among store employees, especially when handing him a gun. Markie was fidgety and pulling on locked gun cabinets. Markie asked to use a store telephone and was told no but when he asked Ballantyne to see a handgun, Ballantyne opened the cabinet and handed it to him. The gun had no trigger lock and the magazine was ready to be loaded. Ballantyne didn’t ask to see Markie’s identification.
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Publish date : 2024-09-10 11:58:00
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