Some new ammunition emerges against Cow Palace gun shows
Event producer Crossroads hides its officers’ violations
Would you hire someone who had violated firearms laws to run a gun show?
Even asking the question seems absurd. Yet two officers of Crossroads of the West Gun Shows — the company that produces gun shows at the Cow Palace and other stateowned venues — have federal firearms convictions. Crossroads President/CEO Bob Templeton pleaded guilty in 1981 to a federal firearms law violation arising from sales of guns to Mormons in South Africa, and his son Jeff Templeton has been convicted of at least three violations of federal firearms and drug laws, beginning in 2003 when he was the Crossroads vice president.
It is hard to imagine that the Cow Palace Board of Directors would have knowingly approved this fox-guarding-the-henhouse scenario. Indeed, it appears that Crossroads never disclosed the Templetons’ convictions, perhaps because Bob Templeton had to resign from a Utah gun control task force when his conviction previously came to light in 1984.
Over the past few months, gun show opponents discovered not only the Templetons’ firearms convictions but also other serious concerns, including that a Crossroads vendor apparently sold a large quantity of illegally manufactured armor-piercing/incendiary bullets to the Las Vegas music festival mass shooter.
According to a federal criminal complaint, the vendor and the Las Vegas shooter connected at gun shows in Las Vegas and Phoenix. Because the vendor did not have the requested quantity of ammunition on hand at the Phoenix gun show, the unlawful sale was completed at the vendor’s home — where the shooter put on gloves before handling the box containing the armorpiercing bullets, which was found at the shooting site. The gun shows in Las Vegas and Phoenix described in the complaint match the dates and locations of Crossroads gun shows.
The vendor apparently was approved for Crossroads gun shows in Las Vegas and Phoenix even though his website, called Specialized Military Ammunition, advertised High Explosive Armor Piercing Incendiary ammunition as well as other forms of armor piercing ammunition. It’s possible that vendor lists (which I have tried unsuccessfully to obtain), would show that the same vendor has sold ammunition at Cow Palace gun shows.
Don’t think something similar can’t — or hasn’t already — happened here. The San Francisco city attorney said in a 2013 lawsuit that Crossroads “flagrantly facilitates” illegal conduct by allowing its California gun show vendors to evade the state’s ban on sales of large-capacity magazines. The complaint alleged that Crossroads allowed vendors to sell disassembled large-capacity magazines under the guise of “repair kits,” which were readily reassembled into new, fully functional large-capacity magazines, in violation of California law.
And the author of a recent Open Forum, Garen Wintemute, recounts that he listened as a customer at a Crossroads gun show near San Diego sought to buy multiple, illegal assault-type weapons. Although “the seller declined, (he) said that he would make the sale a few weeks later at a Crossroads show in Phoenix.”
These serious concerns about Crossroads provide yet more reasons why community members and local legislators are committed to ending gun shows at the Cow Palace. Even gun show supporters should want Cow Palace gun shows to be run by a trustworthy business partner that complies with firearms laws, discloses relevant information (including its officers’ firearms convictions), and scrupulously vets gun show vendors.
A coalition of organizations, led by the SF Brady Campaign, recently asked the California Department of Justice to investigate these and other serious concerns about Crossroads. Please join me in asking Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the Cow Palace Board of Directors to ensure that a thorough investigation is conducted, and if the investigation reveals grounds to do so, that the current Crossroads contract is terminated.