Federal investigators recommended revoking the license of Wisconsin’s Badger Outdoors gun shop after a 2006 inspection – a rare move that could have closed the business, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. But there was no revocation and the store remains open, operating as Badger Guns. The license recommended for revocation was voluntarily relinquished, the players inside the operation took on new roles and a new license was issued, creating what one federal official called a “clean slate” for the store.
Badger Guns came under intense scrutiny in the past year after two Milwaukee officers were shot with a gun purchased there. Over the past two years, six Milwaukee officers were wounded by people using guns purchased from Badger Guns or Badger Outdoors. Badger Outdoors and later Badger Guns have sold the bulk of crime guns recovered by police in Milwaukee for at least the past decade. Federal court records since 2004 for eastern Wisconsin show three-quarters of straw buyer criminal cases – where someone with a clean record buys a gun for a felon – involved purchases from Badger Guns or Badger Outdoors.