A Louisiana gun dealer with a federal firearms license will likely lose his license and his gun store after federal agents tracked a gun he had reported stolen from a gun show and discovered he had been circumventing federal gun laws to sell weapons and accessories illegally.

Jeremiah Deare contacted Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office to report a firearm he was trying to sell at a gun show had been stolen.  Owner of Dave’s Gunshop in Lafayette, Deare had a federal firearms dealer license which required him to run background checks on the people he sold weapons and accessories to, but he claimed he was at the gun show as a private individual.  The weapon he reported stolen had last been registered with a different licenced dealer, located in Florida, in 2010.

The FBI agent looking into the case obtained a warrant to search Deare’s home and business in February 2021.  Law enforcement found 247 weapons and accessories at his home and 372 guns and accessories at his store that were not properly listed in account records for his store or were not listed in inventory records required for license holders. 

Upon further investigation, the FBI found that Deare and his wife, Sarah Fogle, had sold an unknown number of weapons that were supposedly part of the inventory at his store to individuals at gun shows in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas for whom they did not run required background checks.  The transactions were done in cash or via online apps like PayPal.  The transactions were not recorded in the accounts of the gunshop, and the money collected was used to support the lifestyle of Deare and Fogle.

Many of the weapons were later claimed as lost or stolen property by previous owners; Deare never ran the serial numbers of the guns to find out if they were stolen.  Some of the guns had been purchased by customers of Dave’s Gunshop, only to be stolen later.  Others were guns consigned to the store to sell, or they were entrusted to Deare to clean or refurbish.

In an unusual move, the FBI had to file suit against the 619 firearms and accessories in federal court, seeking their forfeiture in order to legally gain custody of the weapons.