Courts back police, order shop to surrender firearms

ARLINGTON -- The days of a decades-old Arlington gun shop appear to be numbered after a judge last week ordered the owner to relinquish the shop's remaining firearms to police.

A Middlesex Superior Court judge ruled that police could seize PSMG Gun Shop owner Paul Giragosian's inventory. The following day, police seized 374 firearms, leaving the shop without any firearms on the premises, according to officials.

The seizures followed a rash of unusual events at the gunshop, including two burglaries and two suicides on the premises in the span of five years. Several guns from the burglaries have been linked to Boston-area crimes, town officials said.

In addition, another court ruling has rendered Giragosian unable to operate the Park Avenue gunshop, or any other in Massachusetts, at least for now. A Cambridge District Court judge has held that Arlington Police Chief Frederick Ryan did not abuse his discretion in suspending Giragosian's firearm licenses, including his right to sell firearms.

Giragosian "is not a suitable person to be issued the firearm licenses that are the subject of this hearing," Judge Severlin B. Singleton III wrote in his opinion issued June 6.

An attorney for Giragosian, Dean Carnahan, said he plans to appeal that decision.

"He's been without income since late January," Carnahan said. "It's been a struggle for him because he's been doing this for 31 years." Giragosian, 60, who emigrated from Syria in 1969, opened PSMG Gun Shop on Park Avenue in 1976.

Carnahan declined to comment on the seizure of the firearms. Giragosian also declined to comment, referring all questions to Carnahan.

John Maher, Arlington town counsel, said, "I can assure the gun shop will never reopen. It's too dangerous."

The legal battles are not over, however. Giragosian has filed a federal lawsuit against the town alleging violations of his civil rights. A hearing in that case is scheduled for Wednesday.

The gunshop, the only one in Arlington, first drew scrutiny on Dec. 13, 2002, when Chris Chao, a 28-year-old Arlington resident, committed suicide in the shop's basement. Giragosian said he believed Chao, who had received firearm training from him, had received his license to carry a firearm. Chao had not. Unbeknownst to Giragosian, Chao had been granted a firearm license on Nov. 2, 2001, but Arlington police had revoked it a day later, after his parents reported to police that their son was suicidal, according to a police report.

The police report states that Chao had attempted suicide several times and had been involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment twice.

On Sept. 25, 2005, the shop was burglarized while Giragosian was traveling in Germany. When he returned, Giragosian gave police an inventory of 39 missing firearms. In fact, 44 were missing, according to an audit by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Cambridge District Court decision said.

Then, on Jan. 24, Peter Hartzel, a newspaper reporter who lived in Arlington, shot himself in the head while Giragosian was standing to his left during the last day of a three-day firearm training. Hartzel died and Giragosian's head was strafed by the bullet. Police say that Giragosian should have been standing behind Hartzel, not next to him; Carnahan said his client had been standing to the left and slightly behind Hartzel.

"If he had been right next to him, the bullet would have gone through his head," Carnahan said.

An inspection of the shop following the shooting, subsequently ruled a suicide by authorities, turned up a number of code violations, including the use of combustible soundproofing.

On Feb. 27, Ryan revoked three of Giragosian's licenses -- his license to gunsmith, his license to sell ammunition, and his license to sell, rent, or lease firearms.

An ATF investigation found that Giragosian had manufactured several firearms without a manufacturer's license, failed to contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation before the transfer of firearms, failed to report multiple handgun sales to individuals, and failed to properly log firearms.

On March 16, Ryan revoked Giragosian's license to carry a firearm and his license to possess a machine gun.

In addition to the two suicides, in March 2004, a woman threatened suicide in the shop by demanding a gun and saying she would shoot herself. Giragosian refused to provide her with a firearm and called authorities.

Of the most recent theft at the store last month, when some 16 pistols were stolen, Giragosian's attorney said the blame lay with local police. Carnahan said officers were slow to respond to the scene and might have scared the thieves off if they had arrived faster.

Town officials said police responded in a timely fashion.

Sarah Schweitzer can be reached at schweitzer@globe.com.