One of the rifles confiscated from Buford O. Furrow Jr. on the day he killed a postal worker and wounded five people at a Los Angeles Jewish community center was sold at the same Tacoma, Wash., gun store linked to the rifle used by the Washington, D.C., snipers, according to a lawyer for Furrow's victims.
The connection between the shootings was made using documents released in January by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to lawyers for the mother of slain letter carrier Joseph S. Ileto and the parents of three children wounded in 1999 at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills.
Their lawsuit against gun manufacturers was dismissed last year and is on appeal. The gun seller, a store in Tacoma, is not a defendant.
"The significance is that you have two of the most notorious mass shootings in the last few years originating from the same store," said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, a Washington, D.C., group that advocates for more gun control.
In 1997, the Tacoma retailer, Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, sold Furrow one of two .308-caliber Imbel rifles found in his van after he killed Ileto and fired 70 rounds into the community center, wounding a receptionist, a teenage counselor, and three boys, ages 4 to 6, Horwitz said.
Authorities have also traced the Bushmaster .223-caliber semiautomatic assault rifle allegedly used by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo in the three-week rampage that left 10 people dead and three wounded around Washington, D.C., last fall to the same Tacoma gun store. After the manufacturer shipped the gun there, there are no records reflecting how it left the store, according to court records.
Horwitz said the owners of Bull's Eye should have been on notice that their guns were getting into the hands of dangerous people when ATF agents contacted them in 1999, after the community center shooting, to find out who purchased the rifle. Investigators worked from the serial number on the gun, which they traced through the manufacturer to Bull's Eye. Store records show Furrow purchased the gun, Horwitz said.
A man who answered the phone at the store referred questions to attorney David Martin, who did not return calls seeking comment.
Lawrence Keane, a gun industry spokesman, said: "It is not unreasonable to see a high-volume dealer have more than one [ATF tracer] request over time." Most crimes are committed by someone other than the gun's original owner, he said.
