Posted on 10/10/2015 4:40:24 AM PDT by rellimpank
Testimony ended Friday in a rare civil case pitting two wounded Milwaukee police officers against the gun store that sold the firearm used to injure them.
Closing arguments are set for Monday morning, with jury deliberations to start later in the day.
It is only the second negligence case of its kind against a gun store to make it to trial nationwide since a federal law protecting firearms retailers and manufacturers from such suits was passed a decade ago. The first one ended this summer in victory for an Alaskan gun store.
The law allows lawsuits in limited circumstances. Suits are allowed if the gun dealer broke the law and was negligent in its sales. That is the argument the officers are making in the Milwaukee case.
On Friday, a psychologist testified for two of the defendants — Badger Guns and its owner Adam Allan — saying his evaluation showed that although former officer Graham Kunisch cannot return to work at the Police Department, he may be able to work elsewhere depending on the results of therapy.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
—ping—
Odds anyone on whether the Dept. of just us gets involved?
The linked reporting on this story is horrendous. 95% of it is about the grievous impact on the plaintiffs (the LEOs) and a couple percent is actual presented facts.
The gist of it is they claim the store:
1. Had a whole list of ATF violations in the past and the license was surrendered,
2. A new owner related somehow to the old owner(s) took over with a new ATF license which ATF gave, and
3. The new owner had questionable rigor in addressing the “telltale” signs of straw purchases - one of which was the under aged final recipient of the gun purchased.
I guess how, why, where, when, who and what happened during the sale will come out during the trial.
The gun dealer broke the law in selling the guns. They really don’t explain how in the article above. But if they were routinely breaking the law in selling to criminals...
Just a guess.
DK
(snip)
Badger Guns had a sign posted in the store barring anyone under 21 from entering, but Allan testified he didn’t routinely check IDs. Instead, he used the sign to get rid of people he didn’t want in the store.
“It was more of a tool we would use,” he testified. “If there were people in there we did not want, we could dispose of them real quick.”
The gun used to shoot Kunisch and Norberg was purchased by Jacob Collins for Julius Burton, who at 18 was too young to buy a handgun from a store.
The officers’ attorney has presented what he called telltale signs that Collins was buying the gun for Burton — what’s known as a straw sale. (snip)
Looks like the store’s own rules (sign at the door) was not followed. They have a big problem, but what is the law about straw purchasing in Wisconsin and if there is one, why is the purchaser not being gone after, other than he most likely has nothing to go after.
The gun store owners have discernibly “deeper pockets” than the thug who bought the gun.
No. Both cops are white and the shooter was black.
The See BS Evening News with Scotty Pelley covered this story one night last week.
Of course, they didn’t mention that the shooter was a Negro-American.
Just another anti-gun hit piece for See BS.
Knowing the reputation of the Milwaukee JS, and most, if not all print “journalist”, I will just have to put my faith in the jury at this time.
The story sure makes the store and owner look pretty bad though.
It will be interesting to see the outcome of this one.
Read the earlier article at the link below. One gets the impression the gun shop was very lax in following regulations concerning straw purchases. If the article correctly represents the testimony, a jury may find the gunshop owners liable.
What about the guy who is attacked by a hammer, is the store who sold the hammer liable, is the manufacturer liable, or why not go for the big money if attacked by a tire iron, the dealer who sold the car the company that made the tire iron the company that transported the car to the dealer, the company that manufactured the car, it all sounds ridicules but that is where we are headed, if not already where we are at.
Oh, like the ATF did in ‘Fast and Furious”. But they get away with it.
The other side of the coin (ironically also from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel):
They’re coming for our guns again
Following this writer’s summer hiatus, and while preparing several future blogs on Milwaukee’s Chief of Police Ed Flynn’s war on guns, the criminal use of firearms in just a few zip codes in the city has resulted in a record number of deaths and injuries. Strangely however, gun violence in the rest of the city and the rest of the state of Wisconsin is in decline. If the Chief is correct that stronger gun laws are needed to reduce the availability of guns to criminals, then why do people of all ethnicities living outside the embattled zip codes, and having even easier access to firearms, not have at least a somewhat corresponding ratio of increased gun violence?
One of Chief Flynn’s first targets was a gun store outside of his jurisdiction known then as Badger Guns. This will be addressed further in future blogs. At first blush, however, it would appear that the Chief’s efforts has helped the standing of two Milwaukee Police Officers who are currently about to have their personal injury lawsuit against that retailer be heard in Court. The pleadings will likely include allegations that a licensed gun seller has the responsibility for the actions of the buyer of the gun. All of us have heard the comparison to allowing Ford to be sued for the actions of a drunk driver operating one of their vehicles. Porsche is currently in litigation with Attorneys for the plaintiff arguing that a driver of one of their cars was killed in an accident and that the liability for that death should fall upon Porsche because they produced a vehicle that could be driven at very high speeds. Another is the comparison of allowing persons to sue fast food restaurants and utensil manufacturers for causing obesity.
Yet as foolish as these may sound, the legal principle herein is nevertheless ‘apples to apples’. The United States Congress attempted to forever prohibit these types of frivolous lawsuits against the firearms industry by enacting the federal law named the Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act.
An exception is that a suit may move forward if it can be shown that a gun dealer sold a firearm in conflict with a gun control law that requires gun dealers to deny a sale to any person who they know or have reason to believe is actually buying that firearm for another person who is lawfully prohibited to be in possession of any type of firearm. Although it’s exceptionally difficult for a gun dealer to know that a prospective customer is actually buying the gun for another person, Badger Guns has a decades long history of calling the Police Department and the ATF whenever they thought that a prototypical ‘straw man’ purchase was about to take place in their store. Previously, litigation was frequently initiated throughout the Country by Attorneys who knew that the insurance company for a gun dealer (or any other defendant) would often rather pay out money in a bad settlement than to have a good - and chancy - fight in the Court system.
In the end the lawsuit against Badger Guns will in all likelihood fail. The Attorneys for the plaintiffs do seem to be interested in the customary settlement usually offered by most Insurance companies to make the ‘problem’ go away. The Attorneys representing the Police Officers are directly or indirectly connected to the Nation’s leading gun control organizations. And these organizations are beginning to starve to death as more and more Americans are buying guns and joining the NRA. If the lawsuit against Badger is lost, then the Nation’s gun control organizations win. A loss like this will be the flagship of future fund raising efforts erroneously claiming that the injuries to the Officers and a failed lawsuit proves the need for yet stronger controls and bans on the firearms owned by many tens of millions of Americans who exercise their second amendment rights without ever committing a crime.
Another small faction of Americans who believe that armed law breakers can be disarmed by laws that restrict the lawful acquisition of guns by persons who don’t commit crimes are found within parts of the medical industry. The deservedly respected Dr. Steven Hargarten, honored for all that he has done for the medical industry and therefore for all of us in need of medical care, has maintained a passion for placing the blame for gun shot deaths and injuries not upon the people who committed the crime, but rather on the existence of the inanimate firearm itself. For decades Doctor Hargarten has placed himself on the leading edge of legislative attempts to either ban handguns or to ban bullets. As the Chairman of a study committee to find out just who is shooting whom and with what type of gun while using which specific ammunition, the Doctor lost an argument with committee members when he tried to suppress entering the race of the perpetrator and victim into the data. Like the Phoenix that has risen from its ashes, Doctor Hargarten along with a handful of medical professionals are again in 2015 attempting to sell the concept that the actions and behavior of criminals should be treated like viral infections rather than criminal violations and then be treated accordingly. Too, they will need increased funding to provide this treatment
The very first paragraph in an article about ‘Kids, Guns and Violence’ in the August 31st MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL ended with the sentence “....the danger of firearms still permeates the community”. The writer apparently assumes, or at least implies, that the mere presence of firearms somehow creates a danger in our society. The article goes on to focus on accidents involving the misuse of firearms and later closes with the conclusion that enacting draconian gun laws restricting the federal and state constitutional rights of a growing Nation of gun owners will somehow reduce gun related accidents.
Responsible people would rebel if youthful drivers were licensed without training. Society would be shocked if it were proposed that youths be denied any form of sex education (by parents or other approved authority) leaving kids to learn whatever they could on the streets. But when the proposal to provide firearm safety training in the Nation’s schools with the singular goal of reducing firearm accidents, the same crew wailing for tougher restrictions on guns bemoan the concept of safety training. Mainly, because the world’s leading and most experienced authority on safety with firearms is the NRA. Gun prohibitionists are appalled by the fact that the best way for young persons to avoid gun related accidents is to train them in safety. And certainly not from the NRA no matter how much
expertise the NRA has on the issue of gun safety.
Too, lets put this issue in a proper perspective. The statistics are available to anyone on the internet from sources like the AMA, the CDC, and the NIH. The number of children accidentally injured or killed, no matter what age you define children, pales by comparison to other common causes. Causes wherein we aggressively teach our children basic safety. These includes bathtubs, swimming pools, stairways, household poisons and a host of other causes of accident and death. Motor vehicles tend to be at the top of the list while guns are near the bottom. Ironically It may be that the greatest singular cause of accidental death and injury in America is the medical industry. Citing several studies, in 2013 the NEW YORK TIMES wrote that Doctors accidentally kill over two hundred thousand Americans each year from what is euphemistically referred to as ‘medical misadventures’ and more commonly known in the industry as ‘complications’.
Suicides with guns, of course! It certainly is “a most efficient engine” to complete the act. But the idea that the availability of guns being a contributing factor in suicide has been continually discredited since the mid 1950’s after the publication of the professional work entitled “PATTERNS IN CRIMINAL HOMICIDE” by Doctor Marvin Wolfgang of the University of Pennsylvania. Many other Nations, with Japan being just one, where the population has never been permitted to possess any firearms for any reasons, have a much higher rate of suicide than people of all ages in America.
Teaching children what not to do when they encounter firearms and teaching others how to safely handle firearms that come into their possession is the proven and correct way to reduce unintended and accidental shootings. But those who oppose gun possession also oppose safety training, no matter how many lives could likely be saved. Look at the reduction of deaths and injuries afield following state mandated Hunter Safety Training prior to being able to purchase hunting licenses. The Nation’s gun control organizations like to use this information to ask that lawmakers enact statutes that prohibit anyone from possessing firearms unless that person successfully completes a government mandated safety course. In the US Supreme Court rulings regarding petitioners Heller, and then MacDonald, the Court ruled that the Second Amendment is an individual Right. With most states having their State Constitution clearly defining an individual right to keep and bear arms, any pre-condition prior to exercising a person’s ‘gun Rights’ surely would then be unconstitutional.
Now as this blog is is about to be posted, another tragic shooting has taken place at a school in the state of Oregon. President Obama lost no time and immediately held a press conference asking for the passage of more anti-gun laws that, had such laws been in place, would have had zero effect in preventing the killings. Members of the military who have experienced combat, Police Officers in patrolling violent neighborhoods and people who have dealt with lethal violence have preached to deaf ears that ‘gun free school zones’ have become the chosen ‘killing zones’ because the killers know that law abiding citizens in these target zones would be very unlikely to have a gun to defend the students. And equally to blame are the well intended people who are unable to come to grip with the realistic world wherein the only possible way to be able to prevent continued tragedies of this type is to be able to meet the evil force of violence with an equal or greater force. Without trained, competent and armed people in the Nation’s places of learning, the next deadly school shooting is right around the corner.
The Badger Guns employee who sold a handgun used to wound two Milwaukee police officers testified Thursday that he had no memory of the 2009 sale, even after watching a 40-minute video played in court where the buyer struggled to complete two pages of paperwork.
The video also showed that Julius Burton, the man who later shot the officers, was in the store the whole time and is seen looking over Jacob Collins’ shoulder several times as Collins labored with the forms, which usually take 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
Donald Flora testified that he had received no training when he started working at Badger Outdoors in 1995, but rather learned on the job how to spot suspected straw buyers — people who legally buy a gun for someone who is barred from purchasing one.
Adam Allan, who took over the operation in 2007 and changed the name to Badger Guns, testified that he did not have a training program, did employee performance reviews only from “time to time” and did not recall reviewing Collins’ transaction with Flora after the officers were shot. Allan also said he did not implement the recommendations from a firearms industry group designed to prevent straw purchases.
Read at:
I’ve never understood how they can claim it a straw purchase unless the buyer says, “I’m buying this for my cousin Vinnie” or hands it to some kid on the way out of the shop.
How about suing the parents of the criminal?
Or, if they were an orphan, you could sue the state running the orphanage.
I know the Form 4473 specifically asks the applicant if they are buying it for someone else. The article says that it does this in two places (I don’t recall that, but okay). If the question is answered “yes”, the dealer won’t sell you the gun (there is a proviso in the instructions about gift for a family member) but for a straight up “yes”....no dealer would sell one..
It IS up to the discretion of the dealer to stop ANY sale if he believes they are untruthful or misrepresenting the facts.
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