Two years ago, nearly one million Kansas City Chiefs fans were celebrating the team’s second consecutive Super Bowl win when a mass shooting broke out during the parade, killing one person and injuring 22 others.
One of the guns recovered from the shooting was traced back to Fedo Manning, who had purchased at least 40 firearms from federally licensed dealers between May 2022 and January 2023.1Affidavit, United States v. Manning, Case No. 24-MJ-00022-WBG, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mowd.175192/gov.uscourts.mowd.175192.1.1.pdf. Manning was a straw purchaser — a person who illegally buys firearms for someone else, often for people prohibited from owning them.
The Manning case is just one example of a documented nationwide pattern. It is among the most common trafficking methods in the country, diverting at least 38,000 firearms in just four years and worth $695 million a year to the gun dealers who enable it.
Editor’s Note:This is the first installment of The Smoking Gun’s new “Trafficking Spotlight” series following the trail from gun shop to crime scene.
Frontier justice
Court records and news reports indicate that between May 11 and October 22, 2022 — a span of just five months — Manning visited Frontier Justice, a federally licensed gun shop in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, on 10 separate occasions and walked out with 24 firearms.2See Criminal Complaint and Plea Agreement, United States v. Manning, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mowd.175192/gov.uscourts.mowd.175192.1.0.pdf and https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mowd.169643/gov.uscourts.mowd.169643.146.0_1.pdf; and Samantha Boring, “Three men charged in gun trafficking linked to mass shooting at Chiefs rally,” KCTV5, March 13, 2024, https://www.kctv5.com/2024/03/13/three-men-charged-gun-trafficking-linked-mass-shooting-chiefs-rally/. In all but one visit, he purchased multiple firearms.
Manning was buying Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 lower receivers, the serialized, regulated components for building AR-15s, in near-identical batches. Twenty-two of his 24 Frontier Justice gun purchases were that same model. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry’s trade association, have both identified such repetitive purchases of identical firearms as a common indicator of straw purchasing.
The reason for Manning’s gun purchases quickly became even more obvious. Within weeks of his first purchase, federal agents began to find Manning’s guns at crime scenes. ATF reportedly contacted Frontier Justice six separate times between May and October 2022 with crime gun trace requests, asking Frontier to provide sales records to law enforcement. These requests should have put Frontier Justice on notice that the firearms purchased by Manning had been recovered in connection with criminal investigations with alarming speed.
The first of those trace requests came on May 25, 2022, just 14 days after Manning’s very first purchase at the store. The shorter the time-to-crime window, the more likely a firearm has been trafficked. The average time-to-crime on recovered firearms purchased by Manning at Frontier Justice was 26 days from the date of Manning’s purchase.
In the months that followed, despite being notified repeatedly that guns purchased by Manning were almost immediately showing up at crime scenes, Frontier Justice sold him 17 more guns. One of those firearms was eventually recovered at the scene of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade shooting.
ALPHA Pawn
Manning was also a regular customer at Alpha Pawn, a licensed gun dealer in Kansas City, where the indicators of straw purchasing were no less apparent. Manning purchased at least eight firearms from Alpha Pawn, including one that was recovered in a homicide investigation roughly 13 months after it was purchased.
In two purchases at Alpha Pawn, Manning bought two or more identical Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 lower receivers in a single transaction. And just like at Frontier Justice, the ATF contacted Alpha Pawn with crime gun trace requests for firearms Manning had purchased there a short time earlier. Law enforcement’s first recovery was on June 3, 2022, just eight days after Manning bought the gun at Alpha Pawn. The second came on June 14, 2022, roughly three weeks after it was purchased.
Together, these notifications should have afforded Alpha Pawn the same obvious warning signs presented to Frontier Justice.
A Sprawling Gun Trafficking Network
Court filings in United States v. Manning allege that Manning was serving as a straw purchaser for a broader gun trafficking conspiracy operating in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The guns Fedo Manning bought were funneled by him to co-conspirators, including his brothers, Antonio and Sheron Manning, who sold them to known felons and other prohibited purchasers. Several of the weapons were also converted into machine guns, a separate federal felony.
A confidential ATF informant made 27 controlled purchases of firearms from the trafficking network between May 2022 and April 2023. Seven of those firearms were traced back to Fedo Manning’s purchases. The informant, a convicted felon, told members of the network that he was legally prohibited from owning firearms. Fifteen of the approximately 40 firearms Manning purchased have been recovered by law enforcement in connection with crimes. Court records further indicate that Manning’s purchased guns, including those he obtained from other dealers, were ultimately connected to an aggravated assault, robbery, carjacking, and possession by a 17-year-old juvenile who later became a homicide victim himself.
On March 11, 2024, Manning was charged with conspiracy to traffic firearms, engaging in firearm sales without a license and making false statements on ATF Form 4473, the federal firearm transaction record. On April 17, 2025, Manning pleaded guilty to the first count of the superseding indictment, and admitted to, along with co-conspirators, trafficking at least 22 firearms to persons who were known felons or sold firearms that were converted into unregistered machine guns in violation of federal law. On August 21, 2025, Fedo Manning was sentenced to five years and six months in prison, while his brothers Antonio and Sheron Manning were sentenced to 48 months and 57 months respectively. Co-conspirator Dejohuan Huntley, who sold the network’s guns to the ATF informant and possessed an unregistered machine gun, received the longest sentence at 70 months.
Federal prosecutors have not brought any charges against Frontier Justice and Alpha Pawn. Dealers are required by federal law to refuse to make a sale that they know or have reasonable cause to believe would be illegal. Dealers are also trained to watch for indicators of straw purchasing, and both the ATF and the NSSF have specifically identified the repetitive purchase of identical firearms as a hallmark of trafficking. Manning’s buying pattern could hardly have been more conspicuous: the same buyer, the same lower receivers, visit after visit. Yet the system held no one behind the dealers’ counters accountable. To date, Frontier Justice and Alpha Pawn have not been charged with any crime and remain open for business.