The Business of Guns

outside Chicago itself, meaning that the city’s strict gun control laws do not apply, while it is near enough to the violent South Side of the city that street gangs can get middlemen, called “straw purchasers,” to purchase handguns and assault rifles on their behalf. Despite the extreme notoriety of Chuck’s and the staggering number of crimes linked to its weapons, the ownership of the company has not been found guilty of illegal transactions. Undercover detectives frequent the store to make certain that the sellers follow the appropriate laws, like demanding a mandatory state identification card and a criminal background check, yet no one from the store has ever faced criminal charges. An article in the Economist on Chuck’s proliferation of weapons later used in crime ended its report by noting that, perhaps appropriately, Chuck’s is located next door to a funeral parlor. Most stores, of course, are not direct sources for gang violence, nor do they traffic guns or otherwise break the law. Indeed, the five-year span from 2014 to 2019 not only saw the gun crime rate drop by over 3 percent, but it also saw gun industry growth of about 4 percent. However, data about smaller gun businesses remain hard to come by, especially as regarding the sale of weapons linked to criminals. One reason for this lack of change is that the ATF is legally prohibited from publishing and naming these specific dealers, a consequence of the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, signed by former president George W. Bush with the intention of keeping American gun businesses secure from bad publicity and what was perceived as an overzealous government agency. This limits the national ability to study gun statistics (including gun crime) from individual stores. It has also made it difficult for the ATF itself to bring criminal prosecutions against stores that do break the law.

The Business of Guns

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