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Asking gun industry to stand against violence

BEDFORD HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Religious leaders across the country, including Northeast Ohio, are calling on the CEOs of the largest gun manufacturers to "clean up their industry."

On Tuesday, as many as 50 members of Greater Cleveland Congregations stood outside Atlantic Gun and Tackle in Bedford Heights and pledged to "not stand idly by."

They are not opposed to guns, or gun shops, they say, but are demanding more accountability.

Donna Weinberger is a solon psychotherapist whose clients include students who witnessed the Chardon shootings.


She also tells of how her daughter's college friend died after she was shot three times in the head while working at the college bookstore.

"I swore at that time that I was going to find a way to work on this problem, so that I wasn't just cleaning up the aftermath," said Weinberger.

On Tuesday she stood in Bedford Heights as a member of the GCC Strategy Team fighting for a safer Cuyahoga County.

"In 2012-2013, 20 percent of crime guns traced in Cuyahoga County came back to Atlantic Gun and Tackle," Pastor Eric Dillenbeck of Fairmount Presbyterian Church told Channel 3 News.

"We are saying to Glock and Sig Sauer, Beretta and HiPoint Gun why would you consider selling to them? And asking them to sell your guns without telling them to clean up their act?" said Weinberger.

Specifically, they say, to be more accountable.

First, employees need to recognize someone buying a gun to hand off to a criminal. The gun that Quisi Bryan's girlfriend bought him, Weinberger says, before he used it to kill Police officer Wayne Leon in 2000, was traced back to Atlantic Gun and Tackle.

"Officer Leon, if that hadn't happened, would be alive today with his family," said Weinberger.


The Atlantic Gun and Tackle store owner, Sam Borsellino, asks how about holding the criminals who are pulling the triggers ultimately accountable.

He declined an on camera interview, but would like you to consider this.

Atlantic Gun and Tackle, he says, has been in business almost 60 years. No gun leaves the store without a background check. In fact, he says, they have been checking before they had to.

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