ON THE LEGAL FRONT
After three years of aggravation
and expense, the
firearms industry is seeing anti-gun courtroom attacks losing steam. Not that it’s over, but the legal assault has produced major victories for gun owners and
little change in the way guns are sold or regulated. In fact, 27 state legislatures have responded
to the legal attacks by outlawing certain suits against gun makers.
Of the 32 lawsuits filed
by cities, counties and New
York State against the industry between October 1998 and June 2000, nine suits were dismissed,
including those brought by Philadelphia, Chicago,
Cincinnati, Bridgeport,
Connecticut, Miami-Dade
County and New York
State.
Nineteen of the lawsuits are still in process. Some of the dismissed suits are on appeal.
Among the most recent developments: the California Supreme Court ruled
5-1 in a case brought against gun-maker Navegar Inc. by victims and survivors of a law-office shooting that the California legislature specifically barred such suits.
So far, every state high court and federal appellate court in the nation to consider such suits against gun manufacturers has ruled that makers of legal,
non-defective guns cannot be sued for
their criminal misuse.
The latest setback for gun controllers came recently when a trial judge in New York dismissed a lawsuit by state Attorney General ELIOT SPITZER that sought to hold gun makers and distributors to
blame for hundreds of shooting deaths there each year.
The judge said in the case People vs. Sturm-Ruger that
gun makers had little or no control over
the stores that sell their firearms and could not be held responsible if their firearms fell into the hands of
criminals.
Attorney General SPITZER has said the state will appeal.
In another important legal dispute, a Tucson, Arizona gun-show promoter, a gun manufacturer and a gun distributor
have been removed from a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in a 1999 Pizza Hut shooting
that killed three people.
The gun show promoter, McMann’s Roadrunner Inc., Austrian gun-maker Glock GmbH, and
Glock Inc, the Georgia-based U.S. distributor, are not
liable for the murders, Superior Court
Judge TED B. BOREK ruled.
The Glock pistol used
in the murders was purchased from a private party at a Tucson
Convention Center gun show sponsored by McMann’s company.
Judge BOREK ruled that
the suit was “devoid of any allegations that establishes the special kind of relationship between either Glock or McMann’s to control
the action of (the killers) or protect (the victims).”
In an unusual
gun-rights case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a person convicted of a felony
who receives an “honorable discharge” after completing probation may carry a properly registered firearm unless
specifically prohibited. The court ruled in favor of JAMES K. LASKIE, who was
arrested in Las Vegas in April 1999 and charged with being a felon in possession of
a firearm. The LASKIE case may offer a new avenue for gun-rights to those who went
wrong but paid their debt to society and became
law-abiding citizens.
CAMPAIGNS AND ACTIONS IN DEFENSE
OF GUN RIGHTS
A nationwide campaign to defeat the McCAIN-LIEBERMAN Gun Show Bill, S. 890, has been launched by the Bellevue, Washington-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).
“Organizations crossing the political
spectrum oppose this legislation,” said CCRKBA executive director JOE WALDRON. “Groups ranging in philosophy from
the Physicians
for Social Responsibility
to the National
Association of Arms Shows are
against McCAIN-LIEBERMAN for various reasons,”
he said.
“McCAIN-LIEBERMAN has several drafting flaws
that even many anti-gun rights groups recognize,” WALDRON stated. “The bill isn’t about background checks at gun shows, it’s about bait and switch. As written, McCAIN-LIEBERMAN invades the privacy rights of gun owners and lays the groundwork for creation of
a national gun registration system. It would effectively put legitimate gun shows out of business.”
CCRKBA is kicking off its campaign
with advertisements in The Washington Times, National Review, The Weekly Standard, Insight Magazine and the Washington
Times National Weekly Edition. Advertising will also appear in four of the nation’s most prominent firearms publications:
Gun Week, Women & Guns, Gun
News Digest and Point Blank, WALDRON said.
In Washington, D.C., CCRKBA public affairs director
JOHN MICHAEL SNYDER has given the group’s top rating to the BUSH/CHENEY Administration for setting the federal government on “an enlightened course of friendship and cooperation
with the national Second Amendment community.”
Citing concrete actions by the BUSH
Administration, SNYDER pointed to Attorney General JOHN ASHCROFT’s clear statement that the Second Amendment recognizes an individual civil right to keep and bear arms, a position that directly contradicts that of the CLINTON/GORE Administration.
SNYDER also praised the BUSH Administration
for its pro-gun rights stance on the international scene. Undersecretary of State JOHN R. BOLTON told the United
Nations General Assembly in no uncertain terms that it had better back away from infringement on the Second Amendment as it considered a proposed draft accord on the international sale of small arms.
In another Capitol Hill action, JOHN
SNYDER awarded CCRKBA’s Privacy
Infringement Prize (PIP)
to the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. SNYDER said the Center deserves the mock award because of its national campaign
encouraging parents to ask other parents if they keep a gun in the house before sending their children over to
play.
“It’s absolutely appalling that a
university-affiliated entity should proceed in this manner,” said SYNDER. “Don’t they realize that one of the hallmarks of the past century’s Nazi and Communist dictatorships
was the requirement that neighbors inform on neighbors and that children inform on parents?”
Johns Hopkins officials did not comment
on being PIPed.
CCRKBA’s JOE WALDRON recently congratulated the U.S. Senate for soundly rejecting a $15 million
“gun buy-back” scheme sponsored by anti-gun Senator CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY), noting there is no evidence this program has taken a single gun from criminal hands.
The Senate’s 65-33 vote against SCHUMER’s proposal was a crushing defeat for the New York senator, who has campaigned throughout his congressional career to strip American citizens
of their firearms rights.
SOUTH
CAROLINA AUTHORITIES SAY CONCEALED CARRY WORKS
After fears that South Carolina’s 1996 concealed carry law would
result in gunfights
in the streets,
all is well, according to Capt. JOE DORTON, who oversees the State Law Enforcement
Division’s regulatory department.
Last year, nearly 11,000 residents
applied for permits to carry guns in handbags, briefcases or holsters. The permits are available to any South Carolina resident 21 or older with a clean
criminal record. Applicants must pass a training class and pay a $50 background check and processing fee.
DORTON said very few permit holders have abused the privilege since the law was enacted. “We have had a couple of instances of pointing a firearm, and one
instance where a firearm was fired at an acquaintence after a fight,” DORTON said. In all the cases, the owner’s permit was revoked, he said.
Rep. GILDA COBB-HUNTER (D-Orangeburg)
originally opposed the bill because she feared it would lead to more crime. But she said, “if there’s no evidence of abuse, I
don’t have any opposition to the law remaining in place.”
OHIO CONCEALED
CARRY GETS BOOST
The Ohio legislature is battling
over two concealed carry bills, one (House Bill 225) is unrestricted, the other (H.B. 274) would allow individuals to carry concealed weapons if they take training and undergo
criminal background checks.
Anti-gun forces have given the unrestricted H.B. 225 heavy opposition, and some
pro-gun rights groups have opposed the restricted H.B.
274.
But now there has been some movement
by the pro-gun group that opposed the restricted bill, Ohioans for Concealed Carry, to compromise and support the so-called “middle-of-the-road” measure.
JEFF GARVAS, president of Ohioans for Concealed
Carry, met with Rep. ANN WOMER
BENJAMIN (R-Aurora), chair of the panel considering it, and says he believes the sponsors of the middle-of-the-road version are willing to negotiate.
GARVAS said, “After our meeting we are
optimistic it (H.B.
274) is going to go. We are looking for a way to work with House Bill 274 instead of killing it. We’re willing
to compromise.”
The Ohio chapter of the Fraternal Order of
Police, another opponent, said in July that it could be neutral on House Bill 274 if restrictions were included.
MICHIGAN
JUDGE TOSSES COUNTY GUN LAW COMPLAINT
Michigan Circuit Court Judge JAMES
GIDDINGS recently dismissed
a lawsuit
brought against the state by Ingham County officials that said they needed guidance on how much investigation of applicants they had to do before issuing permits under the
state’s new concealed weapons law.
Judge GIDDINGS essentially told the
county to make up their own minds. Technically, he dismissed the case because the complaint raised no issues of
controversy between the county and the state.
One observer at the court hearing
said the county
complaint was a stalling tactic, but Ingham County Prosecutor STUART DUNNINGS III said it was never intended to delay action on the permits.
The Ingham County Gun Board shortly
after the judge’s ruling approved more than 200 concealed carry permits.
DUNNINGS said the county will file a lawsuit
against the state
to get money for the costs of background checks. An amendment to Michigan’s constitution requires the state to pay for local services it mandates.
ALBUQUERQUE MAYOR’S
GUN BAN REJECTED
The Albuquerque, New Mexico City Council finance committee recently slapped down Mayor JIM BACA’s proposal to forbid concealed carry in the city. BACA told the council he’s a gun owner, but doesn’t think concealed guns in the city is a
good idea. The council not only rejected his idea, it also passed a bill preventing the city from revisiting the
issue.
CANADA:
NOT AS POLITE AS REPUTED
After Canada’s Parliament passed the controversial
Bill C-68, the Firearms Act, the country lost its legendary cool amidst very un-Canadian disputes.
The Inuit, native peoples of the
newly created far north jurisdiction of Nunavut, have long been subsistence hunters and gun rights defenders. They deeply resented Canada’s new gun control law and the Canadian
Firearms Centre, its bungling, budget-busting bureaucracy. That bureaucracy is now threatening the Inuit’s very existence.
The Canadian Firearms Centre has
failed to
provide newly mandated gun licences to thousands of Inuit, some of whom have been waiting more than a year since they first applied,
according to JAMES EETOOLOOK, president of the Nunavut land claims organization.
Nunavut is Canada’s newly-formed “third territory,”
resulting from 20 years of negotiations with Ottawa, which produced the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.
EETOOLOOK, who heads Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, an organization representing
22,000 beneficiaries of the Nunavut land claim agreement, said the licenses that he and thousands of other hunters applied for
before the January 1 cut-off date had not yet arrived.
Without the licenses, Inuit gun owners are unable to legally
purchase ammunition for the summer hunts that provide meat for their families for the winter.
“They cannot buy bullets and cannot
feed their families,” EETOOLOOK said. “We estimate that as many as 40% of those here who applied for permits have not received
them yet.”
“We have also heard of some people
calling the Canadian Firearms Centre to find out where their permit is and being told that they will have to apply again because there is no record of their application,” he added.
Adding to Canada’s gun control disquiet, pro-gun
activist TOM ZINCK
posted to the World Wide Web photographs of Canadian Firearms Centre employees with their names, work addresses
and telephone numbers.
ZINCK says he put them on his Web page
to help gun owners contact the firearms center. The employees shown are mostly record-keeping staff, not public
relations spokespeople, and have been kept anonymous by the government, making contact nearly impossible.
Anti-gun activist WENDY CUKIER, president
of the Coalition for Gun Control, said the Web site is a threat because ZINCK posted a picture of a .50-caliber rifle at the bottom of his pro-gun Web page. CUKIER blames Americans for threats
to gun control advocates.
Where has the much-touted Canadian
politeness gone?
JAPAN:
NOT SO SAFE WITH RISING CRIME RATES
Canada is not the only nation with image
problems. Japan’s reputation as a safe nation has suffered a blow as the National Police Agency recently revealed
that reports
of crimes had surged 16 percent in the first half of this year to almost 1.3 million, while the number of arrests declined
to an all-time low.
There were 1,288,381 reports of crimes
in the first half of 2001, up 15.9 percent from the same time last year.
Japan has a virtual ban on gun ownership
by private citizens, but criminals
seem to find murder weapons ready to hand: knives are a favorite, even swords and metal baseball bats, among other weapons.
Youth crime is a particularly haunting
problem, with a slew of bizarre and often unprovoked crimes committed by young people in recent years.
A 14-year-old boy in Kobe, western Japan, chopped off another pupil’s head
and stuck it on the school gates in 1997.
A 17-year-old member of a motorcycle gang last month turned himself in to confess bludgeoning
a Buddhist monk to death with a metal bat. The monk’s car was blocking the gang’s way.
BANGLADESH BANS LICENSED GUNS TO STOP POLITICAL
VIOLENCE
Fighting between rival political
parties in Bangladesh has led the government to impose an indefinite ban on licensed guns in the run-up to the general election. Gun owners were to surrender their firearms immediately.
Political violence has led to 35
deaths in the four weeks since a caretaker government took over to organize elections by October 11.
In a typical incident, 6 people died
in a recent shootout between supporters of the Awami
League and those of the Bangladesh National Party in a remote village 80 miles from the nation’s capital at Dhaka.
A government statement said, “Carrying
and showing of licensed arms in public has been banned until further order.” It warned of legal action against
violators, but
did not specify the punishment or the number
of licensed firearms in circulation.
IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY REFUSES TO
GIVE UP FIREARMS
The IRA has long fought for total
independence from England. The rebel group committed itself to Northern Ireland’s peace process and a ceasefire in July
1997, but new English-Irish proposals recently unveiled failed to set a deadline on disarmament despite the IRA
having so
far refused to give up a single weapon.
The IRA was born in the early 20th
century during the turmoil which surrounded the partition of Ireland when members vowed never to surrender until British forces were thrown
out of the province.
The British are still there, and
a shaky power-sharing agreement has been striving to maintain peace.
To hand over even some of the substantial
IRA arsenal would be an act akin to surrender, according to activists. The IRA is believed to possess surface-to-air missiles, 2.7 tons of
Semtex explosives and 1,000 guns, including
600 AK-47s.
HAITI POLICE RAID OPPOSITION PARTY OFFICES
FOR GUNS
Haitian police recently arrested
five people at the headquarters of the Confederation of Democratic Unity (KID) in the capital city Port-Au-Prince and found two automatic weapons.
KID leader EVANS PAUL said the arrest
of his supporters was a sign the government was cracking down on opponents.
Haitian President JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE’s ruling Lavalas Family party has been locked in
conflict with his political opposition over flawed parliamentary elections in May 2000. The stalemate has held
up some $500 million in foreign aid for Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.
FRANCE SEES CRIME ON THE RISE
France, which prides itself on civility
and culture, is
becoming a more violent and dangerous place. On Bastille Day in July, a youth gang shocked the nation by torching some 130 cars in the town of Aulany.
In Paris just last month, a laid-off bank
worker disguised himself as a woman, entered the bank and hunted down two officials. He shot one in the throat
and the other in the head while spraying the bank with bullets. While making his getaway with bank hostages, he
shot and killed a motorist who refused to give up his car. The melee left 3 dead and 6 injured.
The bank attack occurred just days
after a grisly murder in the Lorraine area. A 23-year-old man arrested in the disappearance of a 17-year-old girl named Karine told police he hit her with his
car while she was cycling, then panicked and hid the body. Then the man’s female companion told investigators that
the girl had been raped
and killed and her body set on fire.
Pickpocketing and assaults against tourists have reached such alarming levels that the State Department,
on its Web site, cautions Americans traveling to Paris to be careful. China has advised its citizens to be watchful because Asians appear to be frequent targets. C’est la vie, France.
GOVERNOR
GRAY DAVIS SIGNS GUN BILL
California’s Democrat governor recently signed another anti-gun
bill passed by the state legislature.
SB 294, by state Senator JACK SCOTT
(D-Glendale), was signed into law to shorten the time between inspections of gun dealerships by the Department of Justice from 5 years to 21 months.
SCOTT said, “We need to keep guns
out of the hands of criminals. This law will give law enforcement the resources to make sure that criminals do
not purchase firearms from gun dealers.” SCOTT did not explain how more frequent inspection of gun dealerships
would keep guns out of the hands of criminals, who normally obtain firearms by illegal means.
Gov. DAVIS vetoed another provision
of the bill
that would have provided funding
for victim recovery resource and treatment programs throughout the state.
Gov. DAVIS also recently signed a
bill by state Senator NELL SOTO (D-Pomona) that expands prosecution of adult gun owners if children bring their firearms to school. Under the bill, an adult gun owner
could be prosecuted if a 16-
or 17-year -old brings
the adult’s gun to school. Current law imposes possible jail time or fines on gun-owning adults if a child younger than 16 brings a gun to school and injures
someone.
DAVIS vetoed an identical bill last year,
saying he opposed new gun control laws until he sees the impact of existing measures. DAVIS said he made the exception because
two recent school shootings “demonstrate the need to do everything possible to keep weapons out of the hands of
school age children.”
NATIONAL
SCENE: BUSH ADMINISTRATION NIXES SMITH & WESSON DEAL
The BUSH administration is doing
nothing with the
CLINTON administration’s deal with gunmaker Smith & Wesson in which the company agreed to step up gun-safety efforts in exchange for relief from costly
lawsuits.
The Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), the federal agency assigned to oversee the deal, has had no contact with Smith & Wesson concerning the agreement since President GEORGE W. BUSH took office, and the company remains a defendant in
many cases.
HUD was named the lead department
in the accord because it was seen as the federal agency most directly affected by criminals with guns, through
its 3,200 local housing authorities.
The company entered the agreement
hoping to
escape the 32 lawsuits
filed against it and other gun makers by cities and counties seeking damages from gun makers and dealers stemming
from shootings by criminals.
The CLINTON administration made the backdoor
deal because
it could not
get its gun control agenda through Congress. Smith & Wesson was to provide locking devices and develop childproof and technologically
advanced guns that couldn’t be fired by anyone not authorized to use them. In addition, the company was supposed
to closely monitor dealers who sell its products.
A HUD official told the Wall Street
Journal that “HUD is not enforcing it. In fact, HUD is not doing anything with it.” The BUSH administration sees
the Smith & Wesson agreement only as a memorandum of understanding, which therefore isn’t legally binding for
either side.
Smith & Wesson has brought on
serious problems by entering the agreement. Led by gun-rights groups angry with the company’s apparent capitulation to a sneaky government
gun control program, buyers
stopped purchasing its products almost immediately following the March 2000 deal.
The company was forced to double
the length of its normal summer employee furloughs last year, and then lay off 15 percent of its workforce after
profits fell.
The British owners of Smith &
Wesson sold the company to Saf-T-Hammer
at a fraction of its previous worth.
It obviously doesn’t pay to be seen as a sellout by the gun-buying public.
GUN NEWS TICKER: SHORT TAKES ON GUNS
l New York: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s brother Tony Rodham told the New York Post that he wishes he’d
been packing heat when he was attacked by a jealous neighbor who caught him getting friendly with his girlfriend.
“I wish I had a gun when he broke into my house, because I would have killed him,” Rodham said. Sen. Clinton couldn’t
be reached for comment.
l Virginia: Fairfax County prosecutors have dropped trespassing
charges against the father of one of the Columbine High School shooting victims. Thomas R. Mauser, 49, was arrested in June for protesting outside the National Rifle Association’s offices and
repeatedly refusing to leave. The NRA did not pursue charges against Mauser, and the arresting officer has left the force so there was no witness to make a case.
l Florida: A
Tampa-area sculptor wants $120,000 of taxpayer money to make two sculptures from smelted guns. One would go to
the Sheriff’s Operations Center in Ybor City, and other to a district office
at Citrus Park Town Center. The abstract art would be made
from the metal of guns collected in Operation Cease Fire, a program that “collects firearms people want to discard,”
according to a news release. Jan Stein, Hillsborough County’s public art coordinator, said, “This is a very important public art project because it’s about
public safety.” No one quite knew what that meant, since none of the smelted guns have ever been used in a crime.
l New York
City: Bernie
Goetz is a name from the past, but he’s running for mayor as an independent. Bernie became a defining figure in
New York criminal history when the turned the tables on four punks who
threatened him with a screwdriver and tried to mug him on the subway. He shot them and endured a sensational trial
in which he became the symbol of fighting back. His chances in the election are microscopic to nonexistent.
l California:
Popular singer Nate Dogg pleaded guilty
to possession of an unmarked gun in Norwalk, California.
Norwalk Superior Court Judge Michael Cowell sentenced the singer to a three-year probation and a $1,000 fine. Nate Dogg had been found guilty in a drug-related case in 1996, so he was charged with possession of
a firearm by a felon.
l Florida:
Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, preparing for a gubernatorial run, has suggested that licensing gun owners
would help curb violent crime. Widely considered the front-runner in a crowded field of Democrat hopefuls, Reno
stopped short of calling for firearm registration, saying instead gun owners should have to demonstrate “they know
how to safely and lawfully” use firearms. Just how licensing non-criminals would stop criminals from violent crime
was not clear.
l Pennsylvania:
FBI auditors found that Pennsylvania’s State Police intended to retain for 20 years information it
obtained on individual background checks in its Instant Check System, in violation of the federal Brady Act. Federal
law requires the state to “destroy all records of the system” within only 6 months, which has been reduced to 90
days. Attorney General John Ashcroft has proposed to reduce the hold time to one day. Ralph Calvin Sieg, Acting Chief of the FBI’s Programs Support Section at the Clarksburg, West Virginia National Instant Check System center, informed Pennsylvania officials that “This practice must stop immediately.”
l Washington, D.C.:
The U.S. Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime has released a bulletin called “Working With Victims
of Gun Violence,” which recommends that programs be broad-based, comprehensive and include victims’ families. The
bulletin said gun violence differs from other types of violence in being more random and affecting more people
in a shorter time. Victims are more likely to include innocent bystanders. Also, residents of affected neighborhoods
are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being shot.
THWARTING THUGS
A would-be robber’s attempt to hold up a Citgo gas station near Raleigh, North Carolina,
was foiled when the clerk turned the tables on him. The man entered the store shortly before 2 a.m. armed with a knife and attempted to rob the store. He was forced to flee when the clerk pulled
a pistol on him, according to a release from the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office.
A 17-year-old Lafayette,
Indiana, punk tried to rob the home of Dennis Clark, president of Lafayette Glass Co. Clark saw the would-be burglar and chased him into the next
county during a vehicle pursuit that reached 80 miles per hour.
The boy was arrested by Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Department
detectives on suspicion of burglary and attempted burglary while armed, an offense that under Indiana law must be filed in adult court despite the suspect’s age.
Clark said he suspects the same person burglarized his home three nights earlier, taking cash from
his wife’s purse and three or four firearms from his garage.
“I’ve often said that I would probably not shoot to kill someone,”
said Clark, 58, a long-time gun owner who is licensed to carry a handgun. “On second thought now, I should have
shot him in the leg.”
In Huntsville,
Alabama, a burglar leaving the home of John and Elizabeth Koisch was confronted by Mrs. Koisch’s father,
Dr. Lewis McCurdy, Jr., a local veterinarian.
McCurdy said the man got in his car and tried to run over him.
McCurdy took out his pistol and fired at least one shot at the burglar, fatally wounding him.
The dead burglar was identified as Jonathan Lee Malmay, 21, had seven felony charges pending for grand jury investigations and had been out on bail
nine weeks when McCurdy killed him.
Two San Francisco men attempting to rob a work-loft occupied by concert promoter Brian Walters were shot and
killed in the attempt. Walters was talking to a visiting friend when the two robbers entered and produced a handgun
and demanded to know where Walters’ safe was. The two intruders took the safe downstairs, where a scuffle ensued
with Walters and his friend. Walters got the robbers’ gun and shot them both. No charges have been filed against
either Walters or his friend.
