This is part 2 of a series.

When we last left off, unlawful California resident Shenghua Wen had been arrested for procuring and shipping firearms to North Korea in 2023. He purchased a gun store in Texas, but had other people buy the guns for him. His North Korean contacts also asked for a civilian plane engine and US military uniforms, which he was planning to send. He’d told North Korea he was planning a secret attack on South Korea.

All of this is concerning, but for me, one question in particular leaps out: Wen bought a gun store, but had other people buy guns for him. Why?

Wen stated in his testimony that he had other people buy the guns that he ultimately shipped to North Korea because “he knew that if he attempted to purchase firearms, the firearms stores would contact the ATF.” This is true; Wen, an illegal alien, would not be able to complete a Form 4473, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) background check form used for gun purchases. So why not just have other people legally buy guns from stores as customers, and give them to him illegally, so he could put them on the ship to North Korea? What was the point of buying a store he didn’t seem to need?

Well, let’s look at the web history of the gun store Wen bought: Super Armory in Houston, Texas.

Based on its Facebook page and Google reviews, Super Armory was a well-liked establishment in Houston’s Chinatown since 2015. Its proprietor, Arthur Kuo, took pride in owning the first Mandarin-speaking gun store in Houston. Based on the traditional-style characters visible in photographs of the storefront, this would have been run by, or may have been catering to, Taiwanese. (Taiwan still uses the traditional Chinese characters, whereas Mao’s government promulgated a simplified script beginning in 1956.)

Kuo, or “Coach Kuo” as one Google reviewer called him, had gained a following for his sought-after Mandarin-language firearm safety courses that drew students from as far as Virginia. This was detailed in a Houston Chronicle article highlighting Super Armory’s success – published 4 days before the business closed, without mention of the closure.

On 13 April 2023, a post from Super Armory’s Facebook account noted that (after 8 years of operation) the business’s lease was up, and would be closing by the end of the month.

A last post from the business on 29 April noted its final day of operation, with a closing wish of “God bless.” One follower asked if Super Armory was opening a new location elsewhere. “Heart willing, heart willing John,” replied Super Armory.

But Super Armory never re-opened elsewhere. Moreover, Mr. Kuo gave a different reason for closing in a video interview with the Houston Chronicle: the gun business is a losing financial proposition. He said he would continue to give firearm safety courses. But, an internet search reveals no evidence of any firearm safety courses taught by Arthur Kuo since the Houston Chronicle article in April 2023.

Appearances can be deceiving; but this appears to be a wholesome business that closed unexpectedly, and to the disappointment of customers. The proprietor – with a demonstrated passion for helping the Mandarin-speaking community understand legal firearm rights and safety – seemingly vanished into thin air.

Now, here's the weird part: the next person to own Super Armory was none other than the illegal squatter and alleged international criminal Shenghua Wen, who bought the store for $150,000. I'm not making that up; he told investigators that he bought it himself.

Now, here's the really weird part: in May 2023, the same month Wen told investigators he bought Super Armory, the “Premise” and “Mailing” address values for Super Armory’s Federal Firearms License (FFL) record were updated from the old brick-and-mortar location to a mixed-use commercial building nearby; and another address associated with Kuo. These addresses stayed the same until November 2024, when the FFL record was removed from the ATF’s website concurrent with the FBI’s investigation. But why would Coach Kuo, who apparently moved on from the firearms business entirely, agree to have his personal information attached to the company's new ownership? In all likelihood, he didn't; it seems more likely that his name was used to create a false paper trail to obfuscate who actually owned the business -- and, more importantly, its FFL, which would have been prohibitively difficult for an illegal immigrant to obtain. Either way, the facts are simple: a normal firearms business closed, only to be reopened as a gun smuggling operation later. 

But this, too, leaves a question open: why this store? Its location -- Texas -- was deeply inconvenient for Wen's purposes, FFL or not. So what gives? Well, given North Korea's ties to the Chinesee Communist Party (CCP), it might be that closing this store, given who it catered to, was a secondary part of Wen's mission. Consider: the CCP prohibits private gun ownership in China with some of the strongest gun control in the world, and even rewards informants who report on violators. The CCP also believes that the millions of Chinese emigrants living abroad, even with naturalized citizenship, are merely “Overseas Chinese” with expected loyalty to China. The CCP extracts its demanded loyalty with bullying and threats of repatriation through its seven aptly-named, US-based “Overseas Chinese Service Centers.” One of these “CCP police stations," by the way, is less than a mile away from the former location of Super Armory in Houston, Texas. 

In other words, it would stand to reason that the CCP's baleful attitude toward Chinese Americans learning to exercise their Second Amendment Rights would make it especially eager to close a store like Super Armory. After all, the fact that it was owned by a Taiwanese man and catered to a Mandarin-speaking audience would make it an active hindrance to the CCP’s attempt to export its gun control measures to the US. Why else put one of their "Overseas Chinese Service Centers" so close to it? Aside from speaking against the CCP, what worse crime could the Overseas police want to monitor?

Small wonder, then, that a gun store proprietor in Houston, fulfilling his mission to arm and train Chinese and Taiwanese Americans in self-defense, was forced to reluctantly shutter his dream business. The fact that he did it at the same time that an illegal alien in California was outfitting North Korea, and the two crossed paths to help each other out just as the lease was ending, however, hints at more sinister possibilities. It would be too much to speculate on those here, but one thing is certain: these facts are simply too strange to rule anything out.