TACOMA, Wash., Oct. 28 — Upstairs above his gun shop and behind a door marked "Employees Only," Brian Borgelt huddled today at a laptop computer on a desk piled high with paperwork. Mr. Borgelt, the owner of Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, flipped through a wad of business cards from journalists. Outside in the parking lot, television cameras were fixed on the store's entrance.

Mr. Borgelt's eyes were heavy and his manner abrupt. He was not enjoying the attention that came with owning the most scrutinized gun store in America.

Downstairs, agents for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were sifting through records, seeking information about a semiautomatic Bushmaster XM15 rifle that the authorities say was used by John Muhammad in the sniper attacks.

Several agents said Mr. Muhammad had bought the weapon at Bull's Eye. But when agents trying to trace the gun went to the shop on Thursday, Mr. Borgelt told them he did not know what happened to it, the agents said. He still had the box the Bushmaster was shipped in from its manufacturer, but no record of its sale or the documentation required under federal law about its owner.

Mr. Borgelt's store has been under investigation by the bureau for several years. Two years ago, agents said, they conducted an audit of Bull's Eye and could not find sales records for 150 guns. Gun dealers are required to keep records of all purchases and sales.

A spokesman at A.T.F. headquarters in Washington said he could not comment about the store, because the case was under investigation.

Mr. Borgelt confirmed today that his store had been audited, but said such audits were not unusual. "If we had prior violations that exceeded the industry standard, we would not be in business," he said.

Mr. Borgelt would not talk any further about his dealings with the agency. He said that he had been advised not to say anything that might compromise the investigation into Mr. Muhammad. Even so, his exasperation with the attention, from both federal investigators and the news media, was too hard to contain.

"We are a reputable company," he said. "Our track record speaks for itself. We have been in business for nine years and I am proud of it."

The store bills itself as "Puget Sound's Largest Gun Shop" and claims more than 1,000 guns in stock. Its entrance shares a wall with a 50-foot safari mural of a rifle cross hairs trained on a water buffalo on the African savannah, painted on the wall of a windowless building in a loud, weedy section of Tacoma.

Inside is a large, fluorescent-lit showroom filled with the accoutrements of the shooting life: camouflage fatigues, boxes of bullets, black powder. A book on wild game recipes shares the rack with a manual for firing a .223-caliber rifle.

Upstairs at the store's 12-lane gun range, a visitor can pay $7.50 to rent a shotgun and blow large holes in a picture of a charging Rottweiler, or a thug holding a hostage.

"It's a comfortable place to shoot," said Cisco Velez, 26, who helps provide security for the Navy's submarine base in Bangor, Wash.

As the thump of muffled gunfire sounded beyond the closed door of the range, Mr. Velez questioned the government's efforts to determine how the rifle got from this store to Mr. Muhammad's hands. "It doesn't matter whether it came from here or D.C," he said of the weapon. "It's the madman that pulled the trigger."

Federal agents, though, were interested in the gun's origin partly because of Mr. Borgelt's past problems accounting for his inventory.

Under federal law, when a customer buys a gun from a licensed dealer, the customer must fill out a federal firearms application and then undergo a background check. The A.T.F. agents said there was no record that Mr. Muhammad filled out the form or that Mr. Borgelt sent it to the F.B.I. for the mandatory check.

Nor, the agents said, had Mr. Borgelt reported the rifle stolen as he is required to do within two days. It is federal crime for a licensed dealer not to keep records of a gun or to fail to report a gun that is stolen, with punishment of up to a year in jail.

Because of a large number of guns Mr. Borgelt could not account for, and because they were finding that a large number of guns used in crimes were being traced back to his store, the A.T.F. agents said they wanted to take action against him.

But, the agents said, the bureau operates under tight restrictions and has been slow to move against dealers suspected of violating the law.

Normally, agents said, the bureau's regulatory division will not take action until a gun dealer has been indicted or convicted on a criminal charge. Even when the bureau does carry out a revocation hearing and finds a store in violation of the laws, it cannot close it until all appeals have been exhausted. As a result, some dealers have remained in business for a year or more after being found in violation of the laws.

Studies of the illegal gun market have found that a very small number of the nation's gun dealers account for a disproportionate number of the guns that are used in crimes.

One study, issued by the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department last year concluded that "Just 1.2 percent of dealers — 1,020 of the approximately 83,200 federally licensed retail dealers and pawnbrokers — accounted for over 57 percent of the crime guns traced to F.F.L.'s in 1998." F.F.L. stands for federally licensed firearms dealers.

Mathew Nosanchuk, the litigation director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, said the agency's limited power to act against this small number of dealers "underscores the need to have stricter regulation of gun dealers."

"If dealers don't even perform mandatory background checks this shows the limits of the law," he said.

Only a tiny number of gun dealers are prosecuted for failing to keep a record of a sale or for keeping false records. According to data compiled by Americans for Gun Safety, another gun control group, there were only 26 such prosecutions in 2000 and 28 in 2001, though there are 85,000 federally licensed gun dealers.

Federal agents have been unable to account for up to 340 guns at Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, the Tacoma gun shop that once owned the rifle used in the East Coast sniper shootings, two law-enforcement officials said yesterday.

The audit began after the owner of Bull's Eye was unable to produce a sales record for the Bushmaster M-4 carbine used in the Washington, D.C.-area shootings, even though the manufacturer had shipped the .223-caliber rifle to his store in June.

Two years ago, another audit by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' (ATF) found that 150 guns were missing from the shop.

The latest disclosure raises further questions about the ATF's oversight of gun sales at the Tacoma store.

"You are not supposed to have any missing — none," said Butch Hulit Jr., an owner of Butch's Gun Shop in Seattle. "Do they occasionally come up missing? Once in a while. But not to the extent of 300."

Gun dealers are required to keep records of sales, which ATF agents compare to records of each firearm bought from gun manufacturers.

ATF agents have been sifting through the sales records at Bull's Eye since the arrest last week of sniper suspects John Allen Muhammad, 41, and his companion, Lee Boyd Malvo, 17. Muhammad, a former Fort Lewis soldier, and Malvo, an illegal immigrant, stayed with friends in Tacoma earlier this year.

Agent Martha Tebbenkamp, a spokeswoman for the ATF, would not comment yesterday on the results of the audit, or even confirm that an inspection was taking place.

But a federal law-enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last night that high-ranking ATF officials at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., have made the audit of Bull's Eye a top priority. The agency is exploring whether any criminal or administrative violations occurred at the store, the source said.

LAUREN MCFALLS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rabbi Mark Glickman of Temple Beth El in Tacoma points to the temple's ark, hit by a bullet last May. The gun used has been linked to the sniper suspects.

ATF agent Daryl McCrary, an agency spokesman in Washington, D.C., said this afternoon that agents are continuing to examine records at the Bull's Eye shop. "They're trying to be as meticulous and thorough as possible," he said.

Because the inspection stems from a criminal investigation of the sniper attacks, agents from ATF's criminal division are conducting the audit, with the assistance of inspectors who normally handle such duties.

After the audit is completed, the agents will review the results and decide if criminal or administrative actions are warranted, he said.

A criminal filing would become public, but administrative actions are confidential until they are completed, he said.

Brian Borgelt, the store's owner, said ATF agents remained at his shop yesterday, but he didn't know what they had found.

"I can't speak for them," Borgelt said. "That's their business. We're just complying with their wishes."

But Borgelt, 37, a former Army sniper instructor, said he runs a reputable business that has a record of cooperating with law enforcement.

"We've got the support of our customers and the support of the industry, and we're supporting the investigation 100 percent," he said, adding that all the attention was making it hard for him to run his business.

Borgelt's store bills itself as "Puget Sound's Largest Gun Shop." He would not say how many guns he normally keeps in his inventory.

The ATF is required to inspect federally licensed stores such as Bull's Eye Shooter Supply at least once every 12 months. If the ATF finds violations, a letter is sent. The ATF can also hold a warning conference for more serious violations and eventually revoke a dealer's license, Tebbenkamp said. Even if the revocation hearing is carried out, the store does not have to close until all appeals have been exhausted.

Tebbenkamp wouldn't say whether the ATF imposed any penalties after the audit two years ago.

It was unclear last night whether the 340 missing records in the new audit include all or some of the missing records from the previous audit, a federal source said.

Another dealer selling the Bushmaster rifle, Jason Gilbert of Gilbert's Gun Shop in Frankfort, Ky., said, "The idea that a dealer can 'lose' guns and not be reprimanded or disciplined is just ridiculous." He said he has never had a missing sales record.

In Tacoma, the ATF agents are trying to determine whether the rifle used in the sniper shootings was stolen or sold without proper documentation, said one of the law-enforcement officials.

Gun shops are required to tell the ATF about missing or stolen firearms within 48 hours of discovering a loss.

Agents have been unable to find any evidence that Muhammad filled out the federal firearms application required to buy the rifle. There also is no evidence Borgelt's store sent the FBI a background request on Muhammad, which also would be required by law.

As the inspection continued yesterday, the rabbi of Temple Beth El in Tacoma talked about the disclosure that a handgun tied to the two sniper suspects had been used in May to fire shots into his synagogue.

At a press conference, Rabbi Mark Glickman said one bullet lodged in an exterior wall and the other pierced the wall and penetrated a corner of a wooden ark holding the Torah, the written teachings of Judaism.

Glickman said he wondered whether the ark, one of the holiest places in the synagogue, was intentionally targeted. "There is no way an outsider could have known where the chapel was," he said. The shooting happened at night when the synagogue was empty.

"We still do not know what motivated the crime, and to call it a 'hate crime' is premature," he said.

Glickman said that when the news broke last week that a high-powered gun had been linked to the Tacoma slaying, he called investigators to remind them about the shooting at his synagogue.

Another handgun linked to Muhammad and Malvo was used in the Feb. 16 slaying of Keenya Cook, 21, whose aunt had sided with Muhammad's second ex-wife in a bitter divorce and child-custody action. Muhammad and Malvo are suspects in that killing.

Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 or smiletich@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times reporters Sarah Anne Wright, Duff Wilson and Susan Kelleher contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

TACOMA -- The owner of a gun shop that was the last recorded stop for a rifle used in the D.C.-area sniper killings yesterday defended his business as a reputable firm that aims to provide constitutional options for victims -- not weapons for "psychos."

A red-eyed and visibly drained Brian Borgelt, owner of Bull's Eye Shooter Supply now under audit by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said the likelihood his firm "might have a connection" to the snipers "is just hard for me to describe."

"If anybody should've been a customer here, it should've been his ex-wife -- the one with the restraining order against him," Borgelt said. "We're a victims advocate. Victims are the people who we cater to -- not psychos."

Borgelt did not concede, however, that John Allen Muhammad or Lee Boyd Malvo obtained the .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle at his store. Nor would he comment on details of the ongoing federal audit that has so far been unable to turn up any record of the sale of the rifle.

But Borgelt also wouldn't rule out the possibility that Muhammad somehow got the weapon from his store.

"He snuck in undetected; under the radar screen," Borgelt said. "That's not what we're about here. If there were a psychometer we could hang above our door, I'm sure he would've set it off."

For the fifth straight day since authorities in Maryland said they had linked a rifle recovered from Muhammad's car to 11 of the 13 suburban Washington shootings, federal agents were at the two-story gun shop near the Tacoma Dome searching through sales records and interviewing employees.

ATF officials in Seattle and in Washington, D.C., yesterday declined comment on the investigation.

At the heart of the gun store audit is how Muhammad or Malvo obtained the Bushmaster, which was shipped from the factory in Maine to Bull's Eye in June.

Investigators reportedly have been unable to locate any record showing that Bull's Eye had sold the gun -- records the shop is required by law to maintain.

"If there is (a sales record), they will find it," Borgelt said, referring to federal agents. "And if there isn't, I'm sure they'll disclose that, too."

Neither Muhammad nor Malvo should have been legally able to buy the rifle from the store.

A domestic violence restraining order against Muhammad should have prohibited him from possession of any firearm. Malvo is a non-citizen and a minor. A check of the FBI's National Instant Background Check System, which licensed gun dealers must consult before legally selling a firearm, should have blocked any sale to either one.

What investigators want to know is whether Bull's Eye did the check, whether the system could have failed to show the restraining order or whether the rifle left the shop in some other way.

Borgelt said he won't know the answers to those questions until the agents are done with their work. However, local authorities said they have verified that the order was entered into the system on March 17, 2000 -- the day a Pierce County court issued it.

Officials also confirmed that the order was still active in the FBI's computer in June of 2002 -- when Bull's Eye received the rifle from the manufacturer, said Tacoma police spokesman Jim Mattheis.

"It was all done right," Mattheis said.

Borgelt would not say yesterday if he believes the rifle was sold to an intermediary or stolen.

The New York Times, quoting an ATF agent it did not name, has reported that store employees have located the box used to ship the rifle from the maker.

"Is that a possibility? You bet," Borgelt said. "But again, that's one of the things that they're looking into, and it would be premature for me to comment about that at this time."

Nor would Borgelt comment on reports that his shop has been under federal scrutiny since an audit two years ago showed that Bull's Eye could not adequately account for the sale of some 150 firearms.

Asked about allegations that his store has a history of poor record-keeping practices, Borgelt responded: "We run a good business here.

"We've built a great reputation, we've got a good crew and we run a good ship."

P-I reporter Lewis Kamb can be reached at 206-448-8336 or lewiskamb@seattlepi.com