Posted on 10/14/2015 6:57:22 AM PDT by BlackFemaleArmyColonel
Jurors in Wisconsin ruled a gun shop must pay $6 million to two Milwaukee police officers who were shot by firearms sold at the store – a historic decision that legal analysts say will have a ripple effect on Second Amendment rights around the nation.
As one legal mind said on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday: “For the first time, a retailer is being held responsible for a gun-related crime.”
The ruling was against Badger Guns, and came after two officers, Bryan Norberg and Graham Kunisch, the latter of whom is now retired, were shot in the face after stopping a suspect from riding a bike on the sidewalk in 2009. The suspect, Julius Burton, has since been sentenced to serve 80 years in prison.
But further investigation revealed he bought the gun about a month before the shooting for $40 from another man names Jacob Collins. Collins, who’s since served two years in prison, had purchased the firearm at Badger Guns, Fox News reported.
Norberg was wounded in his cheek and shoulder, and struggles to perform his police officer duties, Fox said. Kunisch, who was shot several times, actually lost one eye and part of his brain and was forced into early retirement.
The officers sued, alleging Badger Guns failed to take necessary precautions in preventing straw purchases – or, those made by legal buyers on behalf of those who aren’t legally allowed to own or possess firearms.
Their suit in part relied on statistics that showed Badger Guns’ firearms have been traced to more than 500 crime scenes, making it “the No. 1 crime gun dealer in America,” according to court documents, Fox News reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
It will get overturned. Might as well make car manufacturers liable for people deliberately driving into crowds.
Utter bullsh*t, and one reason why they need a better selection process for Juries.
Yep. If this isn’t overturned, it will be the start of the new war on self-defense.
Every single business in the state better leave now.
The shyster lawyers got to be loving this. Next, car manufacturers, knife manufacturers, the list goes on.
If the gun shop loses its appeals then it will just file for bankruptcy. Negligence judgements are dischargeable in bankruptcy. Of course the store (or at least the corporation that owns the store) will probably go out of business but those cops won’t be getting anything.
While this could be bad for the 2nd ammendment, I don’t think we should be hasty in judging the decision. This gun store has a notorious record.
Talk about an attenuated proximate cause. The gun dealership sold the gun to a customer who the sold it to the guy who shot the cops. How could the dealership possibly be responsible for that?
Time to start sending rogue Judges and Grand Juries to Gitmo to get repeated “soft-tissue massages” from the sexually-frustrated goat-humpers caged there for the last decade.
And the followup is GM is responsible for auto crashes, doctors for patients who die and Bic for pens that run out of ink. Guaranteed.
“shall not be infringed” except by thousands of regulations and laws making it difficult.
By extension, GM is a sitting duck.
So a "notorious record" trumps the Second Amendment?
Are you auditioning to be Obama's next SCOTUS nominee?
I agree. The store did not take even the most basic steps to prevent an illegal purchase. If the press accounts of what happened during the purchase, there were enough illegal actions attempted that the store should have denied the purchase.
With this logic, shouldn’t the govment be held liable for selling guns that killed federal agents? Sarc.
Might as well sue fork manufacturers as the reason people are fat.
“if they were truly straw purchases.”
The pistol was resold for $40.
What kind of pistol can you buy for less than $40 so the straw purchaser can make money?
Apparently, because the buyer was black, the gun store should have discriminated against him and refused to sell the pistol.
WalMart found liable for selling bullets for gun in cop shooting: Jury’s $600 million fine sends shock waves thru Arkansas
In a different news story, it appears the US government essentially supplied ISIS with Toyota trucks through a ‘straw purchase’.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.