An online weapons dealer who sold a gun or accessories to three mass killers, including a man who opened fire at a Pennsylvania health club last week, told the Associated Press that the shooters could just as easily have found what they wanted at Wal-Mart or another store. The dealer, Eric Thompson, is president of TGSCOM Inc., which last year sold an empty Glock 9-mm magazine and magazine-loading apparatus to George Sodini, the man who shot 12 women, killing 3, near Pittsburgh.
Thompson said the sale was legal. “The firearms industry and firearms dealers are lambasted by the media and by politicians all the time, and very often nobody stands up and says, 'Hey, we didn't do anything wrong,' ” Thompson said. He said he was “being penalized by doing a good job and employing a lot of people and selling sporting goods.” His company, based in Green Bay, also sold a weapon or accessories to the gunmen in the Virginia Tech and North Illinois University attacks.