Inside the Notorious Gun Shop Linked to Hundreds of Chicago Guns
ProPublica investigates. Link: propublica.org
Early one morning in June 2022, Earl Westforth sat down at a small table inside a hotel conference room in northwest Indiana and began defending his life’s work.
Fourteen months earlier, the city of Chicago had sued his namesake Westforth Sports Inc., alleging that the outdoor- and sports-equipment shop was negligent in how it screened gun buyers and had become an epicenter for the unlawful purchase of guns, which were flooding into the violence-wracked city.
Over 50 years, Westforth had helped grow the Indiana business into one of the state’s most successful gun retailers. Operating from a squat building located just a few miles from the Illinois border on land set between downtown Gary and its richer suburbs, Westforth Sports raked in millions selling ammo, fishing gear and, most notably, guns.
Over eight hours, lawyers representing the city peppered Westforth with questions about how he and his staff handled situations in which a customer tried to purchase a gun for illegal use or resale on the underground market. Westforth explained how he looked for signs of bad intent: cash being exchanged between two customers, or a customer who clearly was drunk or high.
But as he said time and again, often the decision came down to something less tangible.
“Gut feeling is one of them,” he said at one point.
“It’s a gut reaction,” he said at another.
And: “You just feel like something’s not right.”
He later elaborated: “The way their — eye movement, who they’re with, nervous.”
If customers did raise suspicion, the store’s process for keeping track of them was far from precise: Employees wrote notes with their observations and suspicions, then posted them at the store’s cash register. How long the notes remained there varied.
Sometimes, the notes were discarded at the end of the day, Westforth said. If the customer was someone an employee wanted to keep track of beyond one day, the note was moved to a back office.
“Certain ones we keep,” Westforth testified, “depending on how we feel.”
But there was no guarantee that his employees would check the back office for a note if the customer returned, he acknowledged. No rules for how long to keep those notes. No rules for maintaining what he called the “be on the lookout” list. No comprehensive system at all for spotting problem customers.
More than 60,000 retail stores and pawn shops sell firearms in the United States, according to the most recent federal data. This glimpse inside one, as provided by Westforth himself in the 2022 deposition and in other records, puts in stark relief the weakness of government safeguards designed to keep guns from slipping into illicit markets and into the hands of criminals.
Guidelines set by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency that oversees gun retailers, expects licensed owners like Westforth to act as the first line of defense in stopping the flow of illegal guns into vulnerable cities and towns. But with little financial incentive to forgo transactions and limited administrative penalties for failing to prevent illegal ones, some retailers have proven incapable or simply unwilling to play gatekeeper.
Earl Westforth personally has remained silent over the years even as he faced legal battles, scrutiny from federal agents and heaps of public criticism. Ultimately, he was able to leave the gun-selling business on his own terms, announcing his retirement over the summer. He did not respond to repeated requests from ProPublica for comment.
In his deposition, the details of which have not previously been reported, Westforth portrayed himself as a well-intentioned business owner who adhered to the letter of the law. He said that over the years, he and his employees went “overboard” to prevent illegal sales and keep guns out of the wrong hands, many times rejecting potential customers.
But in the deposition, Westforth was forced to address how his methods failed to prevent straw sales — where a firearm is purchased with the intent to resell it, most often to someone who is prohibited by law from purchasing guns.
One notable example involved Darryl Ivery Jr., an Indiana resident who in 2020 purchased 19 firearms from Westforth, spending over $10,000 in just six months. Ivery, who later pleaded guilty to making false statements on federal background check forms in relation to the 2020 purchases, took most of those firearms about 12 miles west of Westforth’s shop and across the state line to Chicago, selling them illegally for profit.
Despite Ivery regularly purchasing multiple guns and paying with cash — red flags for straw sales and gun trafficking, according to law enforcement — Westforth and his employees welcomed Ivery’s business again and again
Asked in the deposition whether Ivery’s string of purchases should’ve raised concerns inside his store, Westforth hedged, pointing out that retailers are not required to determine someone’s intent before selling them firearms.
“It’s totally legal,” he said. “Maybe the guy just likes guns.”
It’s impossible to know how many guns trafficked by Ivery may still be in circulation. But several that have been recovered reveal a pattern that begins at Westforth Sports and ends on the streets of Chicago, where retail gun shops have been effectively prevented from opening inside city limits.
And this continues thanks to the NRA…