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Where'd They Get Their Guns?


Date: August 10, 1999

Location: North Valley Jewish Community Center, Los Angeles, California

Alleged Shooter: Buford Furrow, Jr.

People Killed: One

People Injured: Five

Firearm(s): Fully automatic Uzi machine gun and a Glock Model 26 9mm pistol


Furrow, a gun enthusiast, bigot, former federally licensed firearms dealer, and member of a neo-Nazi group, opened fire at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles, firing more than 70 shots from a fully automatic Uzi machine gun and wounding five. He then killed a Filipino-American postal worker with his 9mm pistol as a "target of opportunity." Police later found documents and maps indicating Furrow had intended to attack other Jewish targets around Los Angeles, such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Skirball Cultural Center.

How Firearm(s) Acquired

The Glock Model 26 was purchased by Furrow illegally from an unlicensed dealer at a gun show in Spokane, Washington. The Glock was originally purchased by the Cosmopolis, Washington, police department in 1996. The police traded in the gun for a more powerful model and the firearm changed hands at least five times before Furrow purchased it. The purchase was illegal because Furrow was prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law due to a felony conviction.


  1. "How Furrow Managed To Acquire His Guns" ABC News, World News Tonight With Peter Jennings, 13 August 1999.
  2. Barry Meier, "Tracing Twisted Path of Pistol Used in California Killing," The New York Times, 14 August 1999.
  3. Suspect Buford Furrow: Was He �Motivated by Hate'?" CNN Burden of Proof, 12 August 1999.
  4. James Sterngold, "U.S. Indicts Supremacist in Mailman's Killing," The New York Times, 20 August 1999, sec. A, p. 18.
  5. David Olinger, "Police Guns in the Hands of Criminals," Denver Post, 20 September 1999, sec. A, p. 1.
  6. Tom Diaz, Pocket Rockets: The Gun Industry's Sale of Increased Killing Power, (Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2000), p. 1.


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 All contents � 2001 Violence Policy Center

