The city of Chicago sued a gun store in Indiana, claiming the store is tied to 850 firearms recovered from crime scenes

• The city of Chicago sued an Indiana gun store for contributing to gun trafficking.
• Mayor Lori Lightfoot said research shows Westforth Sports sells "thousands of crime guns every year."
• "These eye-popping numbers are not the result of bad luck or coincidence or location," the lawsuit said.

The city of Chicago filed a lawsuit Monday against a gun store in Indiana, claiming the shop is the "highest out-of-state supplier of crime guns in the city."

The lawsuit was filed in Cook County Chancery Court against Westforth Sports Inc., of Gary, Indiana, seeking to cease practices that contribute to gun trafficking and monetary damages, USA Today reported.

Studies cited in the lawsuit said that firearms recovered by law enforcement between 2009 and 2016 "consistently rank Westforth as the highest out-of-state supplier of crime guns in the city, responsible for more than 850 recovered crime guns over this period."

According to the lawsuit, the family-owned store "engaged in a pattern of illegal sales that has resulted in the flow of hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal firearms into the City of Chicago," citing the USA Today report.

Westforth Sports has been in business for more than 50 years and is located 10 miles from the border of Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported. According to the suit, the store's president, Earl Westforth, failed to heed warnings from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives about suspicious activity coming out of the store.

"These eye-popping numbers are not the result of bad luck or coincidence or location," the lawsuit said, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. "They are the natural and predictable outcome of a business model that ignores the federal laws and regulations that are intended to keep the public safe."

The 42-page lawsuit claimed that Westforth Sports "feeds the market for illegal firearms" by intentionally selling firearms to gun traffickers and purchasers who transport products from Indiana to Chicago, "where they are resold to individuals who cannot legally possess firearms, including convicted felons and drug traffickers."

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday that research by state and federal authorities revealed that Westforth Sports is responsible for "selling thousands of crime guns every year."

"The time for us to stop to ask them to do better and make sure they're not selling to straw purchases, do what they're required to do as a federally licensed gun dealer, is over," Lightfoot said during a Monday press conference. "We've tried that. It hasn't worked. So now we're in litigation with them."