Gun Shop Owner Arrested & Thousands of Firearms Seized Following Federal Investigation
Feds Confiscate Thousands Of Guns In Raid - TheIndyChannel.com
Now when they say the guns were "missing" from the shop that's not quite accurate IIRC. For those that have never been to Ludco's and seen his full inventory let me give you an idea. He had glass counters like every gun shop has, except they had 2 or 3 levels. Guns were layed in these glass counters however they would fit like a giant tetris puzzle. You would be lucky if you could take a 50 round box of 22 ammo and stand it on it's end between guns. The counter was about 15 feet across the store then turned in an "L" shape and went another 10 feet. Every inch was filled with guns except about 4' that had knives. Behind the counter there were hooks in the ceiling where handguns would hang, close to 100 of them. Also behind the counter were rotating racks, I think 2 or 3 of them. Each rack had about 4 rows of pegs on it, each row had 6 pegs, each peg held about 5 or 6 handguns by the trigger guard. It was a swivel tree of pistols like greeting cards. The back wall, OMG. There were hundreds of rifles of all different kinds lined up against it. No, they were not on the fancy little racks that hold one rifle per slot. They were stacked like cord wood. Out in the customer area there was an additional rifle rack that had surplus rifles and other lower dollar & used items. I never saw the back room but I'm told it was like a maze of firearms. There were gun boxes stacked from floor to near the ceiling in places.
This is a small area close to the cash register off to the side. Most of the stuff would be off to the right of him in this picture. You can see how the guns are stacked in the glass cases and a few hanging down. There is a very small section on the right edge of the picture where the rifle stack starts. This is one of the few pictures I could find of the inside. It in no way does his inventory justice. It was very interesting to see Gold Cups & BHP's hanging like Christmas ornaments.
The building is a 2 story building with what appears to be an apartment above it, don't know for sure, it could have been additional storage or his office. There is a separate building to the right that is not attached to the shop. From what I heard before a lot of those missing guns were stored in that other building due to lack of space. I seem to remember some talk from folks that know him that the straw purchase was to a felons wife, who passed the background check. Take that with a grain of salt, it was a long time ago when I heard about it
Looks like the grand total confiscated was 4300 firearms, 600K rounds of ammo, $160K
Gun Shop Owner Gets 4-Year Sentence - TheIndyChannel.com
I wish I had your memory recall ability!
I went in there about a half dozen times, amazed at how cramped it was in there, as you said, due to the racks upon racks of guns, knives, and other items.
Fred at that time was definitely not exactly Mr. Personality, but I'm a tolerant sort, so unless someone is overtly insulting or ignores me, I'll let it roll off like the proverbial water off a duck's back.
I had (wrongly) assumed that he was limited exclusively to fishing tackle and archery supplies, but a huge thanks to Woobie for explaining the reloading supplies, and another thanks for explaining that (at least when he was in there) that Fred seems a bit more customer-oriented.
Ludco is only ten minutes of a slow drive away from me, so I'll have to swing by there next weekend now.
Hey Woobie, maybe there will come a time when you choose to go there, and I can find time to go at the same time, assuming that my schedule (third shift with rotating days off) jibes.
