Free Republic

The state attorney general's office has ordered Jimenez Arms, the maker of inexpensive semiautomatic handguns, to stop making guns after several models repeatedly failed safety tests. The cease and desist order was the latest setback for the company previously known as Bryco Arms, which was bankrupted by a $24 million court judgment after a teen was paralyzed by an accidental shooting. Paul Jimenez, a former Bryco manager, bought the company for $510,000 during a widely publicized U.S. Bankruptcy Court auction in 2004. Jimenez outbid Brandon Maxfield, the paralyzed teen who wanted to close the plant and melt down the weapons....

LOS ANGELES - (KRT) - Now 17, Brandon Maxfield has been paralyzed from the neck down since age 7. That's when he was accidentally shot with a .380-caliber bullet by a baby-sitter trying to unload a Bryco pocket pistol. Over the ensuing decade, Maxfield and Bruce Lee Jennings, 55, a second-generation handgun manufacturer well-known for making small pistols that sell under $100, have been engaged in an epic battle. The teenager won his lawsuit against Jennings, successfully arguing that Bryco's "Saturday night specials" were defects waiting to kill someone, but Jennings and a distributor are appealing the $24 million judgment...

A Willits teen’s campaign to buy and melt down 50,000 unassembled guns failed Thursday. Brandon Maxfield, 17, had hoped to raise $200,000 through an Internet campaign to buy Bryco Arms’ bankrupt Southern California plant. The facility made the “Saturday night special” that misfired 10 years ago, leaving Maxfield a quadriplegic. Maxfield said he wanted to buy the guns to prevent another child from being crippled or killed. But he was unable to raise the money necessary to outbid the plant’s manager, Paul Jimenez by Thursday, when a Florida bankruptcy court took up the matter. Jimenez bid $150,000. Maxfield’s Florida attorney,...