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Let Freedom Ring,
Posted on 01/11/2005 6:57:23 AM PST by boris
Supreme Court won't toss local gun-liability lawsuit
By Hope Yen, Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider dismissing a lawsuit seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the 1999 shooting of a letter carrier by a white supremacist. Without comment, justices let stand a ruling of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors. The companies' weapons were used by Buford Furrow to kill Filipino-American postal carrier Joseph Ileto and wound five people at a Jewish day care center in a San Fernando Valley rampage.
The high court's move, which allows the lawsuit to proceed toward trial, is good news for gun-control groups who say increased liability will stop industry sales tactics that put weapons into the hands of criminals. Several cities nationwide have sought to sue gun manufacturers, but with little success.
Ileto's mother, Lillian, and families of the survivors contend that Georgia-based Glock Inc., China North Industries Corp., RSR Management Corp. and RSR Wholesale Guns Seattle Inc. should be held liable under California law because they knowingly facilitated and participated in an underground illegal gun market, according to the complaint.
A federal judge initially threw out the case, but a divided 9th Circuit panel reinstated the lawsuit in 2003. The panel said a since-repealed California statute immunizing gun manufacturers in product liability actions did not apply, because it did not address the plaintiffs' theories of negligent marketing and distribution.
The full 26-member 9th Circuit declined to rehear the case last May.
Christopher Renzulli, the attorney for Glock and the RSR companies, has said the gun Furrow used to kill Ileto was originally sold to the police department in Cosmopolis, Wash., by the RSR companies.
According to court records, the department sold the weapon to a gun shop in exchange for a different model. The shop sold it to a gun collector who is alleged to have sold it to Furrow, an ex-convict prohibited from purchasing weapons, at a gun show in Spokane, Wash.
The appeal filed by China North Industries Corp. argued that the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit overstepped its authority in expanding potential liability for gun manufacturers, a role the company says should be reserved for legislatures.
In the original decision reinstating the case, Judge Richard Paez of the 9th Circuit wrote that Glock's marketing strategy creates a "supply of post-police guns that can be sold through unlicensed dealers without background checks to illegal buyers."
In urging their colleagues to rehear the case, dissenting Judge Consuelo Callahan wrote that courts should "be chary of adopting broad new theories of liability."
Congressional legislation barring lawsuits targeting the industry failed last spring.
The case is China North Industries Corp. v. Ileto, 04-423.
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Let Freedom Ring,
Editor
Daily News
My name is not ‘Buford’. I am Jewish and reasonably well-educated. My parents remembered the holocaust, and taught me what the Nazis did to unarmed and helpless Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and the abattoirs of the camps. One of my friends has children who attended the Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills.
I am also a gun owner. I own thirteen weapons. Suppose I decide to buy another. Before obtaining this gun, I will undergo, for the 14th time, a background check by the Attorney General to certify that I am reasonably sane, have no criminal record, and am not a danger to myself or others. How this 14th certification will prevent crimes of passion is a mystery: should I go mad and decide to kill my neighbor, one of my existing weapons will do the job admirably. It is clear that the “background check” for people who already own guns can serve no purpose other than pure harassment.
Now the Ninth “Circus” Court of Appeals has been allowed to render its inevitable wrong-headed verdict over lawsuits against gun makers and distributors. This is only the latest manipulation in a propaganda war designed to demonize gun-owners and supporters of the Second Amendment. One of the most effective propaganda techniques is to construct scare phrases such as “Cop Killer Bullet” or “Assault Weapon”. The enemies of the Bill of Rights are working assiduously to confuse the term “Semi-Automatic” with “Automatic”.
They pretend, for example, that “13 children a day” are “killed by guns”. In order to derive this number, they assume that everyone under 21 is a “child”. The vast majority of “children” who die by gunfire are gang members, who are murdering each other in wars over money, drugs, and turf. But the anti-gun zealots find it useful to invoke a false image of innocent six-year-olds being gunned down in the street.
For 229 years, the United States has had a large number of firearms without massacres like that at Littleton, or attempted massacres like those attempted by Furrow. Guns, in fact, were more readily available before 1960 than now—and such rampages were rare. This suggests that it is not guns but other factors that lead to these killings.
Now I know how smokers must feel. At a recent dinner party, I mentioned in conversation that I own guns and shoot them as a hobby. A shocked silence descended on the room. It was as if I had casually admitted a taste for human flesh, or a rare sexual perversion as yet unapproved by Hollywood. Guests eyed me suspiciously, as if I might at any moment produce a weapon and begin “spraying” bullets. In point of fact, having been repeatedly certified by the State A.G. as a solid citizen, sane and non-violent, I am one of the least likely to perpetrate an outrage. But all of the current gun-law frenzy is directed at me and other law-abiding gun owners.
The current uproar over “straw purchases” is truly amusing in a sad way. If straw purchasers—defined as persons with no criminal record who buy guns to resell to criminals—are indeed a problem, then the State Attorney General has not been doing his job. If I were to purchase, say, 12 handguns in May, and another 12 in June, one would expect Mr. Lockyer to inquire what I am doing with so many weapons. Evidently he has not been inquiring when others make repeated straw purchases. Has anyone accused the Attorney General of nonfeasance?
The Second Amendment says, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” This is plain language, and its meaning is clear. “Infringe,” says my dictionary, means “to break (a law or agreement); fail to observe the terms of; violate; trespass; encroach, meddle.”
Yet the Second Amendment, like those other step-children of the Bill of Rights, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, is simply ignored. A curious sort of blindness—of tunnel vision—infects those who want to “control” guns. They stridently adopt an absolutist position on the First Amendment, but avert their eyes when the Second is mentioned. (Ask the ACLU, “dedicated to upholding the Bill of Rights”, how many defenses of the Second Amendment they have mounted.)
If the gun-control crowd had an ounce of honesty and integrity, they would forthrightly admit that their goal is to outlaw all firearms and confiscate them. Then they would straightforwardly propose—and work to get ratified—an Amendment which repeals the Second Amendment. But they know the American people would never vote to abrogate a part of the Bill of Rights. So they prefer the incremental, “boiled frog” approach—achieving by stealth and gradualism what they cannot obtain openly.
--Boris
So --- the ssuckus scotus has decided to trash our Second Amendment out of fear for themselves?
As the old fool (rehnquist) himself admitted - they were afraid of Americans === communists were cool - Americans were radicals!
Another brilliant decision by the ninth circus court of La La land.
Just when you thought we had put this one to bed...
I am hoping they are allowing the 9th circuit to render a really stupid verdict which they can reverse. They like to reverse the 9th, which richly deserves it.
That is my (forlorn?) hope.
--Boris
"Another brilliant decision by the ninth circus court of La La land.
"
And one not countered by the SCOTUS.
The problem with tyrannical lawyers and judges in this country began the day they ALLOWED these types of lawsuits to even be heard!
How was the purchase of the weapon by a collector who sold it to a criminal the fault of the gun manufacturer? From this story, we don't even know if the collector had knowledge the man he sold the gun to was a criminal. The gun manufacturer sells to the cops, the cops sell to a gunshop, the gun shop sells to a collector, the collector sells to a criminal (did he know this man was a criminal?). That seems to be stretching the limits of liability, doesn't it?
I think this may have a silver lining.
If it goes to SCOTUS, we will know exactly where we stand. The problem with so many of the attacks on the 2A is the studious silence from the high court. Depending on the administration, the enforcement of unjust laws and the creation of new ones ebbs and flows. To me, this is living in a fool's paradise.
A favorable verdict that kills this avenue of the left once and for all would be good, but a decision that holds the manufacturers liable for ensuing criminal use of arms will define the governments view on a slew of related cases. If that happens, 2A enemies will clearly define themselves even to those that now imagine 2A rights safe.
In these times, I prefer legal clarity and illuminated enemies to those that merely pretend to be pro-2A.
After this case is thrown out as frivolous, Glock should go after "Ileto's mother, Lillian, and families of the survivors" and recover their cost of defending themselves.
A company like Sears, or Black & Decker, or McDonalds couldn't do this for fear of losing sales. But hey, what has Glock got to lose? Squash these greedy, deep-pockets-searching, jerkoffs (and their lawyers who should know better) like bugs. Screw 'em.
Ummmm. The point of the article is that it did go to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS refused to hear it.
So, where do we stand?
I need a legal eagle here, but I think if it's not heard en banc, the ruling only applies to California since it was their statute, and not to the entire region covered by the Ninth Circuit?
Your'e right - my bad. I'm in a fog and, collectively, we're still in a legal fog.
I think a SCOTUS decision may be a good thing.
I don't know all the details, but generally the Supremes only hear cases which in their discretion feel would offer some important policy statement or to clarify confusing or inconsistent interpretations of the law by lower courts. They need the case to be in the correct legal posture in order to do that. If there is a motion to dismiss under there are no factual circumstances which would allow the plaintiff to recover under the proposed legal theory, then the court will not want to hear it because it would not be a very clear preceden.
I would assume that if the case is tied, the losing party will appeal. At that juncture, there will be a factual record based upon the testimopny of witnesses, etc. and the court will be able to define the circumstances which forms the basis of its ruling.
Even though they might be rare, there are things gun manufacturer's might do (hypothetically) that could create liability. For example, if the company were condoning and particiipating in some illegal gun sale scheme, or thing such as that. It woulds like the Plaintiff's might be trying to allege some direct involvement that is clloser to the crime than I know. If they are not, I have a hard time believing that they will provide a set of facts that would make the court uphold a ruling against the gun manufacturers.
Any negligence case must include adequate proof of "proximate cause" between the conduct of the Defendent and the harm to the Plaintiff.
This case sounds as though it will be appealsed again after the trial, and there may be a dismissal of the case at that time.
This is really a function of the state legislature -- at least they're accountable to the people.
By the way, just today, Governor Craig Benson signed HB 811 making New Hampshire the 34th state to prohibit politically-motivated, "frivolous" lawsuits against the firearms industry.
States rights!
"tried" not tied
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