RIGHT next to Travis Funeral Home & Cremation Services, a dignified-looking canopied establishment offering funerals for $3,995, sits Chuck’s Gun Shop, a retailer of shotguns, rifles, pistols and semi-automatic guns, as well as ammunition, knives and holsters. The store in Riverdale, a suburb of Chicago, advertises itself as “your friendly neighbourhood gun shop”, but in recent years Chuck’s has acquired national notoriety as possibly the worst of the “bad apple” shops that supply a high percentage of guns recovered at crime scenes. “Criminals will always get guns because Chuck’s sells to the criminals,” is a frequent saying of Father Michael Pfleger, a pugnacious Catholic priest, who has led several demonstrations in front of Chuck’s.
On a wintry day in March, Chuck’s is businesslike and friendly. Asked whether a foreigner can buy a gun (most cannot), Ted, an avuncular, moustachioed salesman, replies: “This is America, you can get anything you want,” before offering a quick tour of the shop’s shooting range, a low-lit room with four 50-feet lanes and a rubbish bin riddled with bullet holes. He explains that all buyers...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2nrXWVy
EmoticonEmoticon