Posted on 03/21/2003 5:48:01 AM PST by berserker
NEW YORK (AP) - A former gun lobbyist has agreed to testify for the NAACP in a lawsuit alleging negligent marketing practices by gun manufacturers and distributors fuels street violence that victimizes minorities.
It will be the first time Robert Ricker, who once worked as an attorney for the National Rifle Association, has testified for gun opponents since he switched allegiance.
"He's a true insider," said attorney Elisa Barnes, who will represent the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at the federal trial set to begin Monday. "He met and worked with the heads of all these companies."
The lawsuit alleges irresponsible marketing of handguns has "led to disproportionate numbers of injuries, deaths and other damages among those whose interests the (NAACP) represents."
Unlike other gun-liability cases across the country, the NAACP seeks no monetary damages. Instead, it asks for injunctions that would place sweeping restrictions on buyers and sellers of handguns.
Industry advocates deny allegations by Ricker that gun makers knowingly sell their products to corrupt dealers who supply criminals. Lawrence Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, called Ricker's claims "outrageous and highly offensive."
"He doesn't scare me in the least," Keane said.
Ricker, 52, made a living as an attorney for the NRA in the 1980s, and later as an executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council, a now-defunct trade group. He had a falling out with industry executives in the late 1990s after advocating a series of voluntary gun safety measures.
In February, Ricker was reinvented as a whistleblower. In an affidavit filed in support of a California lawsuit against gun manufacturers, he alleged the industry "knowingly resisted" taking steps to monitor the bulk sale of guns to federally licensed gun dealers.
"It has been a common practice of gun manufacturers and distributors to adopt a 'see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil' approach," Ricker said in court papers.
Gun-control advocates considered the affidavit a bombshell. "There's no question the industry was shaken by this," said Dennis Henigan, legal director for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "He was one of their major mouthpieces for years."
Ricker, through Barnes, declined to be interviewed for this story.
The NAACP's lawsuit seeks to force distributors to restrict sales to dealers who have storefront outlets, prohibit sales to gun show dealers and limit individual purchasers to one handgun a month. The more than 80 defendants include Smith & Wesson Corp., Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Glock Inc., as well as several gun distributors.
The defendants argue it's unfair and unlawful to hold them liable for the criminal use of a legal product. They also say legislatures - not courts - should set standards for sales. "The industry cares deeply about the lawful sale and distribution of its products," Keane said.
At trial, NAACP lawyers plan to try to bolster Ricker's claims with records from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms detailing how the agency enlists gun manufacturers to trace the source of weapons used in crimes. The data, the lawyers argue, show the defendants knew which dealers were disreputable but still sold them weapons.
Barnes used jurisdictional rules to steer the case to U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, who is considered sympathetic to gun control. The judge has decided the jury will play only an "advisory role," leaving himself to make the final determination on liability and remedy.
In its literature, the gun lobby has bemoaned the case, calling Barnes a "radical anti-gun lawyer," and Weinstein an "activist, anti-gun jurist."
The Scott Ritter of gun control?
So, what do you think would happen to that dealer if he refused to sell a gun to someone because of the color of their skin, or because they were wearing gang colors, or because he "thought" it might be used later in a crime?
Will the NAALCP pay for the dealer's lawyers to defend him against the discrimination lawsuits?
You're probably right, but the gun haters will still get what they wanted all along anyway. The whole purpose of these "nuisance" lawsuits is to bankrupt the firearms industry by forcing them to defend a continual stream of frivolous suits in court. If and when this suit is thrown out, another group of gun haters and greedy trial lawyers will file another suit in another court. A million $ jury award against a FL gun wholesaler, Valor Arms, was overturned a couple of months ago by an appeals court, but it didn't much matter because Valor had already been bankrupted and put out of business by legal fees. Who's next?
The antis have announced that this is their strategy and they will continue with it until the gun industry is a thing of the past.The millions of $ in legal fees can only be passed on to the gun-buying public for so long until the prices become prohibitive for ordinary people to purchase the product. Unless congress finally gets off it's a## and passes a bill to prohibit these frivolous suits it's only a matter of time until the antis achieve their goal. Several pro-gun congressmen have introduced bills to stop this outrage, but the trial lawyer's lobbyists have managed to keep them from coming to a vote. Over half the states have passed laws prohibiting these kinds of lawsuits, but what's needed is a federal law that will stop them nationwide.
Billionaires like Souros and other fanatical anti-gun elitists are quite willing to keep paying the lawyers their blood money for as long as it takes to ruin the industry. A call or letter to your congressman might help get a bill passed that would stop this nonsense.
Huh? Basis for appeal?
teeman
Seventh Amendment, anyone?
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