A Midwest City gun store owner has been accused of improperly disposing of 236 shotguns in a dumpster. Also, a man was allegedly allowed to keep two of the weapons as keepsakes, and federal authorities want to know why.
The mystery emerged Jan. 19 when a sanitation worker discovered the weapons and alerted authorities, Insider.com reported late Friday, citing court filings and a news report. But it started months before at International Firearm Corp., 5701 E Reno Ave., Suite E, owned by Anthony Mussatto, 54, of Oklahoma City.
Mussatto, late last year, had asked agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives how to destroy the shotguns because they were defective, according to a Jan. 26 request for a search warrant of Mussatto's businesses and home.
The guns were identified in court records as Radikal Arms model NK-1 12-gauge shotguns.
The ATF agents told him to cut the shotguns in three places, but the day the sanitation worker stumbled onto the guns, agents found weapons that were still functional, "despite being partially cut," according to the search warrant request. The agents also talked to two men nearby who told them they had seen the dumpster full of weapons several times before.
One of the men said he had seen a store employee cutting the guns outside the store several days a week and that he told the employee he wanted them, not to shoot, but "to hang the firearms on his wall," according to the search warrant request. He was allowed to take two uncut guns and two magazines for them.
In the search warrant application, ATF Agent David Moore wrote he believed a search of Mussatto's home and businesses would show that the two shotguns given away were done so "without the required paperwork or background checks." Moore also wrote he believed Mussatto may have falsified or not completed records to show the other shotguns were properly destroyed.
Mussatto could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Midwest City Police Chief Sid Porter said through a spokesman that his department is not involved with the case.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: ATF probes nearly 250 guns found in dumpster near Oklahoma gun store
