Posted on 11/06/2002 3:09:57 PM PST by Truth Telling Guy
Court says Chicago can try linking crime, gun industry
November 5, 2002
BY FRANK MAIN AND FRAN SPIELMAN STAFF REPORTERS
Chicago won a major legal victory Monday when an Illinois appeals court ruled the city can sue gunmakers and dealers for creating a public nuisance with their products.
The ruling came more than two years after a lower court dismissed the city's $433 million lawsuit against the gun industry.
"This is another important victory for gun victims and cities and local governments that are trying to stem the tide of violence," said Jonathan Lowy of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Larry Rosenthal, an assistant corporation counsel for the city, said the opinion "revolutionized" public nuisance laws, which in the past have been applied to conventional polluters like power plants.
"In our view," the court wrote, "plaintiff's complaint sufficiently pleads facts that, notwithstanding actual knowledge that the guns would be brought into Chicago and used in crimes, the manufacturers, distributors and dealers failed to alter their actions, thereby creating a public nuisance."
The opinion added that a "reasonable trier of fact could find that the criminal misuse of guns to kill persons were occurrences that defendants knew would result or were substantially certain to result from the defendants' alleged conduct here."
Late last year, the appeals court upheld a similar lawsuit that the families of gunshot victims filed in 1998. Among the victims were Chicago police Officer Michael Ceriale, shot to death in 1998 on a drug stakeout, and Andrew Young, killed in 1996 at a stoplight in Rogers Park.
"Today's decision is not all that surprising, given what the appellate court did in Young," said James P. Dorr, a defense attorney for gunmakers in both lawsuits. "I anticipate we will ask the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn this case, too. . . . The City of Chicago alleges the firearms manufacturers market the guns to criminals, which is false."
Richard Pearson of the Illinois State Rifle Association called Monday's ruling "ludicrous."
"They are out to wipe out firearms dealers one way or another," he said. "If this can be done with firearms, what about the getaway car used in robberies or the baseball bat someone uses in a beating or the computer the auditor uses to doctor documents? These are inanimate objects. It requires a criminal to misuse them."
The city's central argument in its 1998 lawsuit was that the gun industry knowingly used a handful of suburban dealers as a pipeline to flood the city with guns that traffickers in turn supplied to criminals.
The city presented evidence that 1 percent of area gun dealers were responsible for 48 percent of gun-related crimes.
Of the 21 lawsuits that municipalities have brought against the gun industry, 10 have been dismissed. Cases in Cincinnati and California are moving toward trial. Meanwhile, the gun industry is pushing legislation in Congress that would provide immunity from such lawsuits, Lowy said
Richard Pearson of the Illinois State Rifle Association called Monday's ruling "ludicrous."
"They are out to wipe out firearms dealers one way or another," he said.
For good news, watch The Liberty Belles on television Friday. We have an appearance on The Rob Nelson Show. Check your area for times.
There's nothing these gun grabbers love more than mass shootings.
If I have that right, it follows that a federal judge should overrule this ruling, if it survives the Illinois supreme court.
The opinion added that a "reasonable trier of fact could find that the criminal misuse of AUTOMOBILES to kill persons were occurrences that defendants knew would result or were substantially certain to result from the defendants' alleged conduct here."
What's the difference?
10 posted on 11/06/2002 4:22 PM PST by Zon
No they'll get their guns...it's the citizens(subjects) who who are to be disarmed. Your knights don't get disarmed, they have to be armed to protect the elites from the subjects when they get fed up of having their freedoms and rights taken away.
Nearly all liberals have cars. This is not true of guns. Remember that the liberal mantra is to accept pain endured by others if it makes things better for the liberal self.
And, of course, our aldermen will still carry and our "deputies" will still carry.
The liberal leadership definitely have guns. The "problem" is that they very well can't use them to enslave people who also have guns.
That is so very true as well.
FMCDH
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