Regional Gun Shows Caught in Political Cross Hairs

The kits for sale on James Michael Swain’s table during last month’s Great Western Gun Show at the Los Angeles County fairgrounds in Pomona drew a lot of attention. For inside the plastic bags were most of the parts allegedly needed to assemble a British Sten Mark II machine gun.

During the two-day show, Swain is alleged to have sold the parts kits to three undercover agents and made arrangements to meet later in Newport Beach. It was at those mid-July meetings in Orange County that Swain allegedly delivered the crucial part, called a receiver tube, needed to complete the illegal weapons. Although it is legal to sell the kits with most of the parts for the weapon, it is not legal to sell the receiver tube which allows the guns to operate.

During one of those meetings in his apartment, Swain also allegedly sold a high-powered military assault weapon called a Browning Automatic Rifle to an undercover federal agent for $3,000 in cash.

Swain was arrested on Aug. 10 and charged with unlawfully possessing a machine gun.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charge and is being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Swain was assigned a federal public defender, who did not return phone calls. The U.S. attorney’s office said Swain may be indicted by a federal grand jury on additional charges.

On that same day, white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr. allegedly wounded five, including three children, when he sprayed the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills with gunfire, and later allegedly shot and killed a postal worker on a Chatsworth street.

Furrow’s alleged crimes earned the San Fernando Valley a place in a string of shootings this spring and summer that include April’s massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, a July 4 rampage near Chicago, and a day-trader’s assault on two brokerage offices in Atlanta late last month.

The highly publicized shooting sprees have sparked calls for tougher gun control laws and closer looks at gun shows.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles County Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke plan to push for adoption of an ordinance to ban the sale of guns and ammunition on all county-owned property, including the Fairplex in Pomona. Four times a year, the Great Western gun show--billed as the nations’s largest--is held at the fairgrounds.

Sheriff Lee Baca and Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks are expected to announce Monday that they are endorsing the ban on the sale of guns and ammunition on county property.

Yaroslavsky said, “The time has come for Los Angeles County to make a clear and unequivocal statement that it will not permit the sale of weapons and ammunition on its property.”

He said he will drop an alternate approach that would have taken aim at possession of a firearm on county property.

Burke said the county should not be in the gun business. “To me, we are part of the problem,” she said, if people are buying guns from a gun show or elsewhere on county property that eventually end up involved in crimes. “I don’t think it’s appropriate that we should be the source of weapons of destruction,” she said.

If the ban is successful, the largest firearms show could be forced out of the county fairgrounds after a run of more than two decades.

Making Contact

At center stage in the coming debate about the proposed ban is what allegedly took place the weekend of July 10 and 11 at the Fairplex in Pomona.

An affidavit filed in federal court by a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent provides an intimate look at how the gun show allegedly provided the point of contact to arrange for the sale of illegal weapons.

According to the affidavit, here is what happened July 10, when an undercover Pomona police detective saw the machine-gun parts kits displayed on Swain’s table at the gun show:

Swain explained that in order to put the kit together and make a complete machine gun, the buyer would need to acquire a receiver tube. He displayed to the detective where to cut the necessary holes in the receiver to attach the other parts.

If the detective purchased the parts kit, Swain said, he would supply the name of someone who would produce the receiver tubes. After about an hour, the detective returned to Swain’s table and engaged in more conversation. At that point, Swain allegedly admitted that he was the person who would supply the receiver tubes. He later allegedly sold two parts kits to the detective for $200.

Swain made arrangements to meet the detective at a later date to transfer the receiver tubes. During their conversation, the affidavit says, Swain repeatedly cautioned the detective that the parts kit and the receiver tubes “together constituted an illegal act.”

A second undercover agent, this time from the ATF, then approached Swain’s table. Swain allegedly sold him a parts kit and an instruction manual on how to manufacture the Sten machine guns using a receiver tube for $140.

“Swain reiterated the admonitions” he had made to the detective “concerning the illegality of assembling the receiver tubes and parts kits,” the affidavit said.

Once again, Swain identified himself as the person who had receiver tubes. He agreed to mail the parts kit to the ATF undercover agent the following Monday.

On July 11, a second undercover ATF agent spoke to Swain about the parts kits at the show. “During this transaction, Swain indicated he had assembled several types of machine guns in the past and that he was very familiar with the laws surrounding the possession, manufacture and the sale of the firearms,” the affidavit states.

The agent paid Swain $235 for two parts kits, a manual on how to make a Sten gun, and a magazine for the weapon. During their conversation, Swain allegedly agreed to provide the receiver tubes with templates attached at his apartment in Newport Beach on July 13.

When the agent arrived at Swain’s apartment on that date, the affidavit says, Swain removed from a cupboard above the refrigerator a red bath cloth which contained a receiver and a trigger group for a Browning Automatic Rifle.

Over the next two hours, Swain exhibited approximately 15 weapons, including silencer kits and at least three kinds of machine gun, according to the affidavit.

Swain agreed to supply 10 parts kits and 10 milled receiver tubes for $250 per gun, along with five magazines for each gun. He eventually delivered to the agent two receiver tubes and several extra Sten parts for $50.

The affidavit says that at the end of the meeting, Swain agreed to sell the ATF agent a fully assembled Browning Automatic Rifle on July 15 for $3,000 in cash.

Before meeting with the federal agent on that date to consummate the deal for the rifle, Swain met with the Pomona detective at another location in Newport Beach.

By prior arrangement, he delivered two Sten machine gun receiver tubes with templates attached. “These items completed the machine gun parts kits that Swain had sold to [the detective] at the gun show on July 10,” the affidavit said. The detective paid $50 for the two receivers, the same price that had been agreed upon at the gun show.

Richard A. Curd, Los Angeles Division director of the ATF, said “the receiver is an integral part of a Sten machine gun. It’s what makes it a firearm.”

In his nearly 30 years of experience, Curd said, he has seen these kinds of activities at gun shows, including the “displaying of certain parts that in themselves are not illegal.”

But he said the presence of the parts is “merely an entree to further discussions that come full circle with a completed weapon. . . . Most of these things are done in a covert, conspiratorial way. It’s the same old game.”

Curd noted that the ATF has traced back to the Pomona show some of the weapons possessed by the two suspects who died after a furious firefight with police outside a Bank of America branch in North Hollywood two years ago.

Other weapons possessed by the suspects were obtained at gun shows in Del Mar, Phoenix and Las Vegas, he said.

Curd said agents obtained a warrant to search Swain’s apartment and his Jaguar automobile, and ultimately either purchased or seized a total of 25 machine guns.

Strong Denial From Show Manager

Chad Seger, manager of the Great Western gun show, told the Board of Supervisors last week that “we had absolutely no illegal activity whatsoever” at the July show.

Asked about Swain’s alleged sale of the Sten machine guns and the Browning Automatic Rifle to undercover agents, Seger insisted, “That did not take place at our show. The ATF actually met the man at our show, but he was unwilling to do anything illegal at the Great Western and they subsequently got him to do illegal things after the show.”

Seger said Yaroslavsky’s depiction of the show as a shopping mall for illegal weapons was “a very unfortunate and wrong characterization. . . . We are trying to foster an environment where criminals do not feel comfortable. We’ve got very, very stringent security requirements. We’ve got a very large presence of law enforcement at the show as well as our own security.”

Yaroslavsky acknowledged that the last two gun shows in May and July “operated under the most stringent set of regulations designed to minimize, if not eliminate, criminal activity.” Despite this effort by law enforcement, Fairplex officials and the show’s promoter, Yaroslavsky said undercover operations still resulted in arrests for illegal activity that began at the gun show. “You cannot police it,” he said.

Legal Challenge Possible

After a review by the county’s lawyers, Yaroslavsky said he is convinced that “the strongest and most direct approach” to dealing with the problems at the gun show is a ban on the sale of guns and ammunition on all county property, including parks, beaches and the fairgrounds.

“From a legal point of view, we are on very solid ground,” Yaroslavsky said. “We have no obligation to allow the selling of weapons on our property.”

Seger said the effort to force the show out of the fairgrounds will “harm us financially because we’ve been at the Fairplex for so long and so many people expect us to be there. Moving to another venue will be a financial hardship, but I think we will make it through.”

The show’s attorney, Chuck Michel, said the county faces “a myriad of legal problems” in attempting to eliminate the show. “This is still a legal activity. Guns are not illegal. Guns are legal in this country,” he said.

Michel declined to discuss the nature of the legal challenge ahead. “I’m not really going to tip our hand about what our lawsuit would be. I hope it doesn’t come to that . . . because the show has made great efforts to comply with all the concerns that the board had.”

But Michel added: “The show is prepared to defend itself.”

He told reporters that firearms are the most effective way to defend yourself and your family. “If you misuse it, you’ll pay the price, just like this idiot who decided to break the law and do business with the ATF and sell an illegal firearm.”

Offering a vigorous defense of the gun show, Michel said: “The fact of the matter is firearms are a great deterrent to multiple victim shootings.”

Michel said Furrow allegedly passed over three sites in Los Angeles that had tight security before he went to the Jewish community center. “Is security and firearms a deterrent to madmen like that hate-monger that went to the North Valley Community Center?” Michel said. “You bet it is.”

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