It’s not every day one sees a minigun — an electrified rotary Gatling gun capable of firing 3,000 rounds per minute — being wheeled on a cart into a federal courtroom.
That unusual sight marked the first day of the trial in Des Moines of Bradley Wendt, police chief for the small town of Adair and owner of several gun stores. Federal prosecutors say that over several years, he bought or attempted to buy 90 machine guns, ostensibly for use by or demonstration for the two-man Adair Police Department. Many of these weapons were actually for personal use by Wendt or his friends, or for him to resell to private buyers for huge profits, prosecutors say.
In total, he faces 15 federal charges on counts of conspiracy, false statements and illegal possession of a machine gun, the last related to a public machine gun shoot in which Wendt let people pay to fire a military machine gun he had mounted on the top of his personal armored Humvee.
Wendt’s attorneys insist he was truthful in his communications with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and that he got the approval of Adair’s mayor and City Council to buy guns for the department with his own money.