The Nevada gun dealer who sold the rifle used in the Gilroy, Calif., shooting on Wednesday thanked supporters who started a GoFundMe to pay for potential legal fees.
“We hope we dont need the funds and would love to return it or donate it. God bless everyone,” Michael Christopherson, the owner of Big Mikes Gun and Ammo wrote on Facebook. “Some people will want to give to the families instead of us. We back you 100%.”
{mosads}In a since-deleted Facebook post shared Tuesday, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported, the owner said he was facing “a minimum of 15 lawsuits” from victims of the July 28 garlic festival shooting, which killed three and injured as many as 15 others.
The GoFundMe campaign, which was started Tuesday, asks for help with “frivolous lawsuits” against the ammo shop and Christopherson, as well as to “provide additional safety measures to keep his family safe form ongoing threats of harm.”
“Big Mike and his family did nothing wrong and followed all laws,” the campaign states. “If you are a Second amendment supporter, we ask for your help to protect one of our own and their safety.”
The campaign collected more than $2,600 of its $10,000 goal as of Thursday afternoon. It said all unused money would be donated to victim funds.
It is unclear whether any lawsuits have been filed against Christopherson and his shop since the shooting, the Gazette-Journal reports.
The 19-year-old gunman in the Gilroy shooting bought the assault-style rifle three weeks before he opened fire during the garlic festival. The weapon is illegal in California but was legally purchased in Nevada, where the gunman lived.
After the shooting, the Fallon, Nev., gun shop owner said he hoped the gunman, who killed himself after the incident, would “rot in hell.”
“I am heartbroken this could ever happen,” the shop’s owner wrote on Facebook. “Good people have been hurt and this goes against everything I believe in.”