At a time of unprecedented scrutiny, Virginia gun dealers look to at least one group for support: gun buyers.

But now that a South Boston dealer has signed a settlement agreement in a New York City lawsuit, he might find his customers in the parking lot instead of at the counter.

The Virginia Citizens Defense League is gearing up to boycott and perhaps picket Cole's Gun Shop, saying owner Mark Cole put their privacy in jeopardy when he agreed to let a court-appointed officer scrutinize his gun sales for the next three years.

Attorney Michael Cole, who represented his brother's shop in the settlement, says it was purely an economic decision.

"Was it going to eat into our profits and ability to make a living more to defend this case or to settle it under the terms that we were offered?" he said. "It's a no-brainer."

As far as VCDL president Philip Van Cleave is concerned, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg himself might as well stand behind the counter at Cole's.

"And Bloomberg is not a friend," Van Cleave said. "He is not being altruistic about it; he has got a problem with crime and he's trying to blame someone else for it."

Bloomberg and the city have been hounding what they call "rogue" dealers in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania over the past year. Cole's Gun Shop was one of 15 dealers named in a public nuisance lawsuit filed in the Big Apple in May.

On Thursday, the city sued a dozen more dealers in a second lawsuit that names Town & Country Pawn Shop on Williamson Road in Roanoke and Franklin Rod & Gun in Rocky Mount.

"Illegal guns don't belong on our streets and we're sending that message loud and clear," Bloomberg said in a statement.

According to last week's lawsuit, the New York Police Department processed some 70,000 guns between 1995 and 2005, and most were recovered from people who were not legally allowed to own them. The plaintiff says handguns that are purchased illegally out of state are easily sold on the street in New York for two or three times the legal price.

Both lawsuits claim the city has traced hundreds of guns used in violent crime there to the dealers named in the complaints. To bolster their argument, the city hired private investigators to enter the stores in pairs and simulate "straw purchases."

A straw sale is when one customer provides identification and fills out the federal paperwork for a sale when it is the other customer who is clearly interested in the gun.

Nine dealers continue to fight the first suit, including Old Dominion, whose insurance company has sued them in federal court in Roanoke over whether they have to pay for the gun store's defense.

"Other dealers who had policies that are quite similar and, in my opinion, legally indistinguishable are getting coverage," said attorney John Lambros, who is defending Old Dominion.

Old Dominion has received about $1,500 from the VCDL's legal defense fund, and the dealer hopes the National Rifle Association will also decide to chip in. According to Lambros, NRA officials have promised to make a decision in January, but an NRA spokesman did not confirm that.

The six dealers who settled the lawsuit agreed to let a "special master" monitor their sales using video and audio surveillance, records and inventory monitoring and random undercover checks.

Former Enron prosecutor Andrew Weissman was named special master in some of the cases. He declined to comment. Although some of the monitoring is being done on a volunteer basis, the rest will be funded by the city.

"If you compare it to the cost of guns coming into the city, this is a good investment," said Eric Proshansky of the New York City law department.

The appointment of special masters is not uncommon, particularly when the courts want to monitor businesses. In 1997, a special master was appointed in U.S. v. Microsoft to provide technical information to the judge. A special master was also tasked with doling out the $11 billion victim compensation fund after 9/11.

But Proshansky said this is the first time he is aware of a special master being appointed to monitor gun stores.

Weissman has the power to fine any dealer under his watch that participates in a straw sale. For Cole's, the fine starts at $1,000 for the first violation.

"We're pretty confident that with a monitor in place, there are not going to be any violations," Proshansky said. "But this is just a way of ensuring that if any store does something the special master believes is a violation, this is a way to levy a fine on the store."

Suing gun dealers is nothing more than a way to address a public safety problem, Proshansky said. But Michael Cole believes it is a gun control issue.

"I see the overall thrust of where the city of New York is going as an attack on private handgun ownership, ultimately."

Lambros went a step further, saying the city wants to put his client and other dealers out of business.

"This is to me an effort by the city of New York to regulate sales -- purely local sales -- of firearms in other states that have different laws than the city, and I believe that if you look at what the city is offering, it will ultimately result in small dealers going out of business," he said.

But so far, none of the stores that settled has gone out of business. Some report slightly lower sales, but Cole's claims business is actually better now than before the lawsuit.

It is unclear how a boycott by VCDL, which has about 3,200 members in Virginia, will affect them.

"Unfortunately he is not giving us any choice in the matter," Van Cleave said. "If you look at what Bloomberg did, he picked on the small dealers with the idea that he could twist their arm behind their back. When it starts affecting gun owners, that's another equation."