Three Times, Same Wisconsin Gun Dealer Has Helped Supply Killers

Eric Thompson, the arms dealer from Green Bay, Wisconsin, said publicly
after helping arm the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois university
shooters that since homicidal maniacs were buying guns and accessories
from him, law-abiding citizens should buy guns from him, too, to
protect themselves from the killers he was arming.

Now, he has done it again. The tortured misogynist who killed three
and wounded nine in a Pittsburgh area gym this week was another
customer of TGSCOM, the online arms warehouse that Thompson operates,
buying a magloader and a high-capacity magazine from the dealer last
year.

Once again, Thompson is telling journalists how upset he is, and how
the incident proves that potential victims should arm themselves, to
protect themselves from killers. The victims the Pennsylvania killer
shot were participating in an aerobics class.

"It seems to me that if I were a person who discovered I helped arm
three homicidal maniacs in two and a half years, I'd question why I was
staying in the arms business," said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Eric Thompson will probably keep
selling arms, and argue that women in the middle of an aerobics class
should have had their guns at the ready. Evil exists in this world,
and it is too often aided by some who think of themselves as legitimate
businessmen.

"The 48-year-old Pennsylvania gym shooter had been issued a concealed
weapons permit. The high-capacity magazine he used would have been
illegal for sale in the U.S. under the Federal assault weapons ban,
which expired in 2004," Helmke said. "Why do we make it so easy for
these dangerous to get these dangerous weapons? We need to be asking
this."

After he was linked to the two previous shootings, Thompson posted a press release:

Thompson says that while he is pro-Second Amendment, he would like to
see an open and honest discussion from both sides of the controversial
gun control debate. To help facilitate that discussion, Thompson is
planning to launch www.GunDebate.com as a location where people can
"have a dialogue on the best way to prevent future tragedy." Thompson
said the site should be ready later this week.

"I hope and pray I will never again be in a position where I am asked
questions about selling items used in a crime," said Thompson. "The
next news story I want to be involved in is how I sold a firearm to
someone who helped prevent tragedy - not cause it."

The website he said he was launching, www.gundebate.com, did not appear
to be operational today. And so far, there has not been a news story
about one of the firearms he has sold preventing a tragedy.