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Two-Year-Old Fed Letter Fans Gun-Grabbers' Hopes
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Two-Year-Old Fed Letter Fans Gun-Grabbers' Hopes
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Monday, Sept. 30, 2002
Skating on thin ice in their lawsuit against a gun maker, 12 California municipalities have trotted out a two-year old letter as evidence that the defendant failed to check on some of the dealers selling their products.
According to the New York Times, which has never seen a gun they don't hate nor a gun owner they don't want to disarm, an Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) special agent Forest G. Webb, wrote the letter to Taurus International Manufacturing asking the Miami, Florida gun maker to install a government computer to help determine whether dealers are helping criminals obtain firearms.
"If your corporation determines that there is an unusually high number of Taurus firearms being traced to certain" wholesalers and dealers, "we suggest that you look at their business practices more carefully," the letter said.
Since acting as an investigative agent for of the ATF is not part of Taurus's normal business routine the company simply ignored the request.
In the Times story "Letter Is Crucial in Lawsuit on Liability of Gun Makers" reporter Fox Butterfield writes that "the letter, and Taurus's inaction, have emerged as major issues in the first lawsuit to reach the trial stage among 30 filed against gun companies by cities and counties around the nation. The plaintiffs include the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and the trial is to begin next spring in San Diego. Butterfield says that the plaintiffs contend that the gun industry "maintains a distribution system that allows many guns to fall into the hands of criminals and juveniles, creating a public nuisance and violating state law on unfair business practices."
He quotes one Dennis Henigan, the legal director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and a co-counsel in the California suits as telling the Times "One of the ways the companies do this is to basically sell to anyone with a federal firearms license. They sell guns without getting any information from the distributors or dealers about the number of guns they sell that end up being used in crimes, or when customers make multiple purchases of guns, both tip-offs to problems."
The plaintiffs claim that the letter shows that Taurus was responsible for checking on its dealers when it knows that its sellers are engaged in hazardous practices, and that the manufacturer may be held liable.
While admitting that gun makers are not legally obligated to monitor their distributors, Henigan says that federal courts have ruled that when a manufacturer of a dangerous product knows that its sellers are engaged in hazardous practices, the manufacturer may be held liable.
But Taurus sells guns to holders of Federal Firearms dealers licenses and it should be the ATF's responsibility to check on the people to whom it issues the licenses and not the manufacturers who sell to them.
Lawrence G. Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade association, dismissed the importance of the letter to the case which, if experience is any guideline, has little chance to succeed.
"I am not concerned about any document that is going to come out," Mr. Keane said. "There is nothing that the firearms industry is trying to hide."
Gun manufacturers are "complying with an extensive regulatory scheme" by selling only to distributors and dealers with federal firearms licenses, Mr. Keane told the Times. As a result, the manufacturers have no responsibility to monitor what those dealers do with their guns, he said, and "it is absurd to suggest that if criminals get their hands on guns the companies should be held responsible."
In a deposition. Paul Januzzo, the general counsel for Glock Inc., of Smyrna, Ga., said that Glock had never analyzed firearms bureau data for its guns recovered in crimes. "There would be no reason to," Mr. Januzzo said. "It wouldn't tell us anything."
Robert Morrison, an executive vice president of Taurus, said in a deposition that after reading in a bureau report that one of his company's handguns was among the 10 most often used in crimes, he did nothing to get the Taurus product off the list. The only thing he did, Mr. Morrison said, was wonder how the bureau classified guns as crime guns.
"I wonder if they found them in the bushes or under a car," Mr. Morrison said.
Mr. Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation said the firearms bureau had repeatedly told the gun makers not to check the tracing information on crime guns because "law enforcement does not want the manufacturers to play junior G-men and jeopardize investigations."
But Mr. Henigan responded that in depositions, no gun company executive could pinpoint any such bureau directive. "This is a myth they have created that they hide behind," he claimed.
Butterfield notes that the suit is based on a novel legal theory, and the gun industry has a long record of winning cases.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/30/132130.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Monday, Sept. 30, 2002
Skating on thin ice in their lawsuit against a gun maker, 12 California municipalities have trotted out a two-year old letter as evidence that the defendant failed to check on some of the dealers selling their products.
According to the New York Times, which has never seen a gun they don't hate nor a gun owner they don't want to disarm, an Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) special agent Forest G. Webb, wrote the letter to Taurus International Manufacturing asking the Miami, Florida gun maker to install a government computer to help determine whether dealers are helping criminals obtain firearms.
"If your corporation determines that there is an unusually high number of Taurus firearms being traced to certain" wholesalers and dealers, "we suggest that you look at their business practices more carefully," the letter said.
Since acting as an investigative agent for of the ATF is not part of Taurus's normal business routine the company simply ignored the request.
In the Times story "Letter Is Crucial in Lawsuit on Liability of Gun Makers" reporter Fox Butterfield writes that "the letter, and Taurus's inaction, have emerged as major issues in the first lawsuit to reach the trial stage among 30 filed against gun companies by cities and counties around the nation. The plaintiffs include the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and the trial is to begin next spring in San Diego. Butterfield says that the plaintiffs contend that the gun industry "maintains a distribution system that allows many guns to fall into the hands of criminals and juveniles, creating a public nuisance and violating state law on unfair business practices."
He quotes one Dennis Henigan, the legal director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and a co-counsel in the California suits as telling the Times "One of the ways the companies do this is to basically sell to anyone with a federal firearms license. They sell guns without getting any information from the distributors or dealers about the number of guns they sell that end up being used in crimes, or when customers make multiple purchases of guns, both tip-offs to problems."
The plaintiffs claim that the letter shows that Taurus was responsible for checking on its dealers when it knows that its sellers are engaged in hazardous practices, and that the manufacturer may be held liable.
While admitting that gun makers are not legally obligated to monitor their distributors, Henigan says that federal courts have ruled that when a manufacturer of a dangerous product knows that its sellers are engaged in hazardous practices, the manufacturer may be held liable.
But Taurus sells guns to holders of Federal Firearms dealers licenses and it should be the ATF's responsibility to check on the people to whom it issues the licenses and not the manufacturers who sell to them.
Lawrence G. Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade association, dismissed the importance of the letter to the case which, if experience is any guideline, has little chance to succeed.
"I am not concerned about any document that is going to come out," Mr. Keane said. "There is nothing that the firearms industry is trying to hide."
Gun manufacturers are "complying with an extensive regulatory scheme" by selling only to distributors and dealers with federal firearms licenses, Mr. Keane told the Times. As a result, the manufacturers have no responsibility to monitor what those dealers do with their guns, he said, and "it is absurd to suggest that if criminals get their hands on guns the companies should be held responsible."
In a deposition. Paul Januzzo, the general counsel for Glock Inc., of Smyrna, Ga., said that Glock had never analyzed firearms bureau data for its guns recovered in crimes. "There would be no reason to," Mr. Januzzo said. "It wouldn't tell us anything."
Robert Morrison, an executive vice president of Taurus, said in a deposition that after reading in a bureau report that one of his company's handguns was among the 10 most often used in crimes, he did nothing to get the Taurus product off the list. The only thing he did, Mr. Morrison said, was wonder how the bureau classified guns as crime guns.
"I wonder if they found them in the bushes or under a car," Mr. Morrison said.
Mr. Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation said the firearms bureau had repeatedly told the gun makers not to check the tracing information on crime guns because "law enforcement does not want the manufacturers to play junior G-men and jeopardize investigations."
But Mr. Henigan responded that in depositions, no gun company executive could pinpoint any such bureau directive. "This is a myth they have created that they hide behind," he claimed.
Butterfield notes that the suit is based on a novel legal theory, and the gun industry has a long record of winning cases.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/30/132130.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
gun owner as far as possible from the manufacturer. The days of sending a money order to Colt for that new Single Action Army and having it delivered to your door are LONG GONE! Maufacturer, wholesaler, dealer, customer. Thats a pretty long trail to watch.
Mark T. Christian