Altogether, taxpayers spend more than $5 billion a year to buy guns and ammunition for our nation’s law enforcement agencies.

That’s a lot of money – not to mention guns and bullets – going to the people whose job it is to keep us safe.

But an analysis by Brady United reveals that millions of these dollars have gone to gun dealers that have been cited for violations of the law. As taxpayers, we’ve all unwittingly patronized dealers around the country that have been cited for a variety of infractions, including these:

• Failing to complete required background check forms
• Neglecting procedures to certify that customers were not prohibited from buying
• Losing customer paperwork essential to law enforcement investigations
• Failing to submit sales reports

Holding firearm dealers accountable locally . . .

In California, 90 law enforcement agencies purchased weapons from firearms dealers that did not follow all gun laws.

Does that mean that the agencies used the weapons improperly? Not necessarily. But taxpayer dollars should not support businesses that fail to meet firearm safety standards. Besides, we’ve all put a lot of time, effort and thought into the gun laws that those dealers aren’t following, so the purchases represent an end-run on the will of the people.

San Diego City Council Member Marni von Wilpert authored the Ira Sharp Firearm Dealer Accountability Act, requiring that gun dealers who bid on city contracts must follow all state and federal firearm laws. The late Ira Sharp was a local gun-reform advocate. Ira and his wife Roseann worked with Never Again CA to ban gun shows at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, which sits on taxpayer supported, state-owned land.

The act takes advantage of the City’s purchasing power to hold gun dealers accountable and raise the bar for responsible firearm sales. Approved in June 2024, San Diego’s ordinance is the first of its kind in the nation to help curb the proliferation of “crime guns.”

. . . and elsewhere

LA Action Police Supply, a vendor with over 40 federal violations, has received $18 million in contracts from 67 agencies across the state.

Taking a page from the City’s playbook, the County of San Diego considered a similar ordinance on firearm procurement. A vote by the Board of Supervisors failed due to a tie vote, but Supervisor Lawson-Remer subsequently recommended the development of a firearm procurement ordinance for board consideration in 2025.

Our neighbors to the north introduced a similar ordinance for consideration by the Los Angeles City Council. By December 2024 the ordinance had passed.

Similar measures have passed in the cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

Four cities. That’s a trend.

If you’re a firearms dealer, know that you’re liable for any infractions in your dealings with law enforcement agencies.

And if you’re a taxpayer in the City of San Diego, rest assured that your money is buying guns and ammunition only from law-abiding dealers.

John White is SD4GVP Treasurer and a board member.

Photo credit: Thayne Tuason, CC-BY-SA-4.0

Raise your hand if you spend money.

Now, keep your hand raised if you consider yourself conscientious about how you spend that money.

Thought so.

If you think the way we do at SD4GVP:

• You want to spend your money with companies that support the goal of ending gun violence.
• You probably want to avoid spending your money with companies that are ambivalent about preventing gun violence.
• You certainly don’t want to spend your money with companies that have a record of donating to the gun lobby and its supporters.

But how can you become a better-informed consumer about gun-violence prevention (GVP)? Where can you get the information about individual companies?

A GVP report card for your favorite companies

SD4GVP board member Lori Van Orden, our eye on all the news related to gun violence in America, told us about the Business Must Act website. It’s a campaign of Guns Down America, a non-profit that works for a “future with fewer guns by weakening the gun industry” and building support for sensible firearm policies.

Business Must Act offers a Gun Safety Scorecard that weighs factors like in-store policies, corporate action and political and lobbying donations. The resulting scores (A+ through F) are a useful indicator of which businesses are doing their part to reduce gun violence and which ones are failing to act.

“Corporations have the responsibility to make their places of business safe from guns,” the campaign’s leaders state. “They also have the influence to change policy and culture to improve our safety everywhere.”

More important, this project challenges us, as consumers and shoppers, to look in the mirror and demand action from companies that don’t value GVP. “It’s time to use our power by shopping with businesses that deserve our dollar because they stand up for our safety.”

Take a closer look at the scores

Click here to get to the Gun Safety Scorecard. As you scroll down, you’ll see that it currently shows scores for about three dozen well-known brick-and-mortar retailers in the U.S.

Do you see any retailers you patronize? Click on any brand to see the factors that go into their score. Are you happy with the grade they’ve received? Do you wish they could do better?

More to the point, are you happy with what they’re doing with the money they’ve made off of you?

The Java Jive and your morning brew

The website shows the companies in alphabetical order, but you’ll probably find it more interesting to examine them by category or industry.

Up near the top of the page you’ll see “Filter Scorecard:”

Click on that to open a list of industries:

“Hmm,” you say. “I buy a cup of coffee several times a week. I wonder if I’m doing that in the most GVP-conscious way possible.”

You tick the Coffee box and scroll down to see something like this:

It’s not an exhaustive list, but chances are you spend at least a few dollars a year in one or more of these shops. And, with two high-scoring brands on the scorecard, you can buy that cup of java without pangs of GVP-conscience. But with one of them, you may need to change your spending habits.

If you then click on each brand, you can see how it scored on the seven criteria. The Learn More link below the criteria provides even more detail.

If I bought a hammer . . .

Or, what if you need to buy a new hammer or radial saw this weekend? How can you do that without giving money to the gun lobby?

Go back to Filter Scorecard. Clear the Coffee box, tick the Hardware box and scroll down. You’ll see something like this:

So, according to the Gun Safety Scorecard, it’s quite difficult to buy a hammer in the U.S. with a clear GVP conscience. About the best you can do is a C-, with a company that isn’t doing much more than trying not to rock the boat.

Stay tuned

This intersection of commerce and GVP conscience is thought-provoking. We included it in a recent newsletter, sending a fair number of clicks to Business Must Act. When we walked our attendees through the website at a recent general meeting, spirited discussion ensued.

So much so, that we’ll publish a sequel to this post with more of the implications of the Gun Safety Scorecard and a few more observations from our members.

John White is SD4GVP Treasurer and a board member.