One of the guns found on Boise mall shooter was bought through online classifieds site | Opinion

One of the guns that was found on the shooter in the fatal Boise Towne Square shooting in 2021 was purchased 10 days earlier through an online classifieds site.

The purchase was a private sale and, in Idaho, not subject to a background check that’s required of gun sales through Federal Firearm Licensed gun dealers.

Had a background check been done, the shooter, Jacob Bergquist, would not have been able to purchase the gun, because of a prior guilty plea to a third-class felony, which prohibits certain felons from possessing firearms under federal laws.

But Idaho is not among the 21 states that require a background check on private sales of handguns.

Bergquist bought the gun, a Beretta model 21A, in the parking lot of a Boise grocery store on Oct. 15, 2021, less than two weeks before he shot and killed security guard Jo Acker and shopper Roberto Padilla Arguelles on Oct. 25.

After firing 18 rounds that also injured four others, including a Boise police officer, Bergquist fled the mall, hid behind a dumpster and fatally shot himself in the head.

In addition to the Beretta, police found two other guns on Bergquist: a Heckler & Koch VP9, which is a 9 mm caliber pistol, and a Glock 19, also a 9 mm.

Information about the guns and the purchase of the Beretta are from a heavily redacted federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms file on Berquist, which was obtained by the Idaho Statesman through a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Bergquist did not fire the Beretta during the mall shooting, according to Boise Police spokesperson Haley Williams. Only the Heckler and Koch was used, she said.

But the purchase of the Beretta shows how Bergquist was able to get around federal laws prohibiting him from possessing a firearm.

Bergquist, in fact, was in possession of several guns.

After the shooting, ATF, FBI and the Boise Police Department conducted a search of Bergquist’s home and found four more guns: a North American Arms .22 Magnum caliber revolver; a Heckler and Koch USP .45 ACP pistol; a Smith and Wesson 5906 9 mm pistol; and a Sig Sauer P320 .45 ACP caliber pistol, according to the ATF report.

The ATF report stated that the guns recovered from Bergquist at the mall and the guns at his house were submitted to the ATF Tracing Center for urgent firearm traces. A spokesperson declined to comment on whether the ATF was able to trace the other firearms or, if so, where they came from or how Bergquist came into possession of them.

Of the 11 ATF files released in response to the Statesman’s request, eight were completely redacted, and several pages throughout the other files were redacted, leaving many questions still unanswered.

But unredacted were the details of Bergquist’s purchase of the Beretta.

Questions about ‘straw purchase’

The man who sold the gun to Bergquist had bought the Beretta, a .22 caliber pistol, at a Sportsman’s Warehouse in Twin Falls on Oct. 5, 2021, according to the ATF report. The man’s name was redacted.

The man told ATF agents that he didn’t like the gun because it kept jamming.

About a week after purchasing the gun, he saw a posting on the online classifieds site Zidaho.com from an individual who was looking for a Beretta 21A, the man told ATF agents, according to the report. The man contacted the individual, who was later determined to be Bergquist, and the two arranged to meet in a parking lot at Fairview Avenue and Cole Road in Boise.

According to the report, ATF agents asked the man if he understood what a straw purchase is.

A straw purchase is a transaction in which one person buys a gun for someone who is not legally allowed to purchase it. Such a purchase is a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

The man told ATF agents that he understood the law surrounding straw purchases, and he “reassured” agents that his was not such a case, stating that he lost money on the Beretta, according to what he told ATF agents in the report.

A receipt from Sportsman’s Warehouse showed the man had purchased the gun for $479.99, before taxes, according to the report. The man told ATF agents that he sold Bergquist the Beretta for $420.

He also told ATF agents that he did not know Bergquist prior to the sale of the gun and did not have any communication with Bergquist, according to the report.

If Bergquist had tried to purchase the Beretta from a Federal Firearms License dealer, such as Sportsman’s Warehouse, he would not have passed the background check, because Bergquist pleaded guilty to a third-class felony of retail theft in Illinois years before.

That felony, which carried a prison term of more than one year, prevented Bergquist from purchasing or even possessing firearms under federal gun laws.

In Idaho, however, theft is not on a list of felonies that would preclude someone from possessing a firearm.

The ATF followed up with the man who sold the gun to Bergquist and the case is now closed, according to Jason Chudy, ATF public information officer.

Chudy said the sale of the Beretta was a person-to-person sale, and the person who sold it to Bergquist was not prohibited from possessing firearms. Neither the seller nor the sale itself violated any laws, according to Chudy.

Private gun sales

Whether it was a straw purchase or not, the transaction shows how people like Bergquist can skirt federal gun laws.

This type of transaction, a “private sale,” has often been the subject of proposed common-sense gun regulations.

Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that formed in 2013 when Moms Demand Action and Mayors Against Illegal Guns merged, calls for background checks on all gun sales.

Currently, background checks are done only with purchases done through Federal Firearm License dealers. Private sales, or sales between two private individuals, are not required to have a background check performed.

“This loophole enables people with felony convictions, domestic abuse restraining orders, and other people with prohibiting histories to buy guns with no questions asked,” according to Everytown’s website. “The loophole should be closed to require background checks on all gun sales — not just on the sale of firearms from licensed gun dealers.”

In all, 21 states have adopted policies to require background checks and/or permits to purchase handguns, including Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado and even Nebraska.

Requiring background checks of private sales would not be burdensome, as it would simply require that a private sale take place at a licensed gun dealer.

When I purchased an M-1 Carbine through a private sale, we did so at a licensed dealer, and I had a background check, which took all of three minutes.

Everytown found that as many as 1 in 9 people arranging to buy a firearm on the nation’s largest online gun marketplace could not legally own firearms.

Traveling to a licensed gun dealer to complete a sale instead of a grocery store parking lot wouldn’t be an undue burden or an infringement on the Second Amendment rights of those who legally can have firearms. In fact, a Google search showed at least six gun dealers within 2 miles of the parking lot where Bergquist bought the Beretta, and several more within 10 miles of that location.

Bergquist, of course, wouldn’t have been able to purchase a gun at all, which is the point.

Idaho gun laws

Idaho’s lax gun laws was one of the reasons Bergquist loved the state.

Bergquist told the man who sold him the Beretta that he loved living in Idaho because it is a “2A state,” referring to the Second Amendment, and he loved the freedoms of living in Idaho. Bergquist was open-carrying a pistol on his hip at the time, according to the ATF report.

In the months prior to the mall shooting, Bergquist had come into contact with several local police agencies, raising alarms and bringing him to the attention of the ATF.

Bergquist had a run-in with Meridian police, open-carrying in a Walmart, which prohibits open carry. Bergquist became verbally abusive to the manager, according to police, and stormed off.

Boise police officers came into contact with Bergquist, again open-carrying, practically daring officers to bust him for jaywalking, apparently “trying to elicit contact in order to have a confrontation with” police, according to one officer. Boise police located his YouTube channel, Guns N Rodents, which was devoted to gun culture and showed “very racist” attitudes toward Central Americans, according to police.

He had even come into contact with Idaho State Police when he went to the office of Gov. Brad Little to talk about gun rights, according to previous Statesman reporting.

Bergquist, who had a holstered handgun on his hip inside the Capitol, requested an audience with Little to “to get his thoughts on persons convicted of felonies being able to carry guns,” according to an Idaho State Police trooper who accompanied Bergquist to the governor’s office.

Bergquist “was trying to get the word out to others that they, too, could carry in Idaho,” according to the trooper.

Idaho State Police “flagged” Bergquist for the ATF, and Boise police forwarded its report to the federal agency.

But nothing was done.

The ATF was aware that Bergquist was prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law, but the agency did not come to that conclusion until after the mall shooting, an ATF spokesperson told me last year.

“ATF did receive information concerning Jacob Bergquist’s possession of firearms from local law enforcement and ATF did look into whether or not he was prohibited federally from possessing firearms,” Chudy wrote in an emailed statement to the Idaho Statesman. “It was determined that he was prohibited from possessing firearms, but that was only confirmed after the Boise shooting had occurred.”

Warning signs

In Bergquist’s case, all the warning signs were there for months before he ended up killing two innocent people.

He should have been stopped somewhere along the way, and he certainly should have been stopped from buying guns.

Idaho should join the other 21 states that have some form of background check for at least handgun sales. For those legally entitled to own firearms, it’s a minor inconvenience, at worst. For guys like Bergquist, who are prohibited by federal law from possessing a firearm, it would be a deal breaker.

At the very least, we should make it as difficult as possible for people like Bergquist to get a gun.

Maybe it would save some lives.