Gun Industry Ex-Official Describes Bond of Silence

A former senior firearms industry executive said in an affidavit filed in court in San Diego yesterday that gun manufacturers had long known that some of their dealers corruptly sold guns to criminals but pressured one another into remaining silent for fear of legal liability. It is the first time a senior official in the gun industry has broken ranks to challenge practices in the business.

The affidavit, by Robert A. Ricker, a former chief lobbyist and executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council, then the main gun industry trade organization, was filed in California Superior Court in support of claims by 12 California cities and counties suing the gun makers and their wholesalers and retail dealers.

The cities, led by Los Angeles and San Francisco, contend that the gun industry has maintained a distribution system that allows many guns to fall into the hands of criminals and juveniles, creating a public nuisance and violating a California law on unfair business practices.

A copy of Mr. Ricker's declaration, filed under seal, was made available to The New York Times.

The meeting was opposed by the National Rifle Association, and Mr. Ricker said in his affidavit that pressure from the rifle association led the gun industry to disband his organization in favor of the more conservative National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Several lawyers for the gun companies, including Lawrence G. Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, now the main gun industry trade group, said they had not yet seen Mr. Ricker's affidavit and therefore could not comment.

In their defense, the gun makers have insisted they do not know what happens after the guns leave the factory, since they are sold to wholesalers and in turn to retail dealers.

But Mr. Ricker, who has been working for more than two decades in the gun industry, including a stint as a lawyer for the N.R.A., said the gun makers had long known that "the diversion of firearms from legal channels of commerce to the black market" takes place "principally at the distributor/dealer level."

In a telephone interview from his home in suburban Washington, Mr. Ricker said he had recently served as an expert witness for the gun industry in a related lawsuit, brought by Cincinnati. He said he also still served as a consultant to some gun companies.

But Mr. Ricker said someone in the gun industry needed to speak up about bad dealers because "we've got a bunch of right-wing wackos at the N.R.A. controlling everything."

Left to their own, Mr. Ricker said, many industry executives "would be more than willing to sit down and negotiate a settlement" with the cities about weeding out unscrupulous dealers.

In his affidavit, Mr. Ricker also appeared to undercut another of the gun makers' most common defenses: that because they only sell to federally licensed dealers, they are fully obeying the law and the rest of the job of enforcing the law can be handled by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Mr. Ricker said in the affidavit that the idea that all dealers operate legally because they have a license is a "fiction." He added that "the firearms industry has long known that A.T.F. is hampered" by its shortage of personnel and loopholes in the gun laws. For example, he said, the bureau can inspect a dealer only once a year as a result of a law supported by the rifle association.

I am absolutely certain that most gun manufacturers know that there is almost no illegal diversion of the firearms they make at the manufacturing level. That is where they have some modicum of control. It means that they do not violate the law and sell their products outside of the Federally regulated distributor market and they take every reasonable means to prevent pilfering of their stock.

What of it? Watch manufacturers take every reasonable means to prevent the pilfering of their stock and only sell to distributors. This is a normal and reasonable business practice and there is little that the firearms manufacturers could do other than open up their own wholly owned dealerships in each state to compete with the small gun shops or engage in mail order sales (which would require repeal of the current Federal laws banning that practice). I am willing to wager that most distributorships and FFL dealers would make the same statement. These people do not wish to go to jail and do not knowingly violate Federal law by selling to people they know are remarketing the firearms they sell. Neither do they knowingly cover up thefts of their stock in trade. One does not make money by allowing people to steal their property and having to fill out those insurance claim forms which usually have a deductible attached.

Of course the man who made this statement is knowingly trying to make a perfectly reasonable fact of life seem nefarious. Gun grabboids are totalitarian monsters and should be treated as such.

I don't have a problem with the ATF doing their job inspecting FFLs. I think that would make a difference in how many firearms are diverted from legal channels into the black market.

Please explain how the ATF doing its job in any way affects the flow of firearms to the black market? An ATF inspection may see a number of purchases to a single indicidual and yet that in no way implies any wrong doing on the part of any gun dealer. The BATF is merely enforcing record keeping requirements. According to the violence policy center the cost of large capacity 9mm on the street is $50 to $100. Please explain how a firearms dealer can make money or even stay in business paying two to three times the street value of a firearm then reselling it at less than street value? According to the ATF's own stats the vast majority of the firearms in circulation on the street have been stolen.

I don't think that's a job the ATF finds real exciting. Examining millions of forms each year at dealers doesn't get the ATF the front page publicity for the congressional show and tells at budget time.

My big problem with the ATF is that the Federal Government is specifically prohibited from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms. What part of the words infringing, keep, and bear are unclear?

Fox Butterfield

There's the first problem right there.

a White House meeting with President Bill Clinton to discuss preventing more school shootings like the one at Columbine High School in Colorado
Klinton meeting..nuff said again.

disband his organization in favor of the more conservative National Shooting Sports Foundation
He lost his job due to NRA influenced internal politics. That's nothing new. I've seen it firsthand.

including a stint as a lawyer for the N.R.A.,
Doesn't mean a thing.

"we've got a bunch of right-wing wackos at the N.R.A. controlling everything."

Ricker is full of crap. The NRA is not right wing wackos.

IMO, this is internal politics, the NRA and Ricker had a nasty split for one reason or another, and Ricker wants to jump into a case of one-upsmanship to get even.

Mr. Ricker, a moderate in an industry dominated by hard-liners, lost his post as executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council in 1999 after attending a White House meeting with President Bill Clinton to discuss preventing more school shootings like the one at Columbine High School in Colorado..... The meeting was opposed by the National Rifle Association, and Mr. Ricker said in his affidavit that pressure from the rifle association led the gun industry to disband his organization in favor of the more conservative National Shooting Sports Foundation.

There you have it - - the guy is a liar and a scumbag with an axe to grind.

...said in an affidavit filed in court in San Diego yesterday that gun manufacturers had long known that some of their dealers corruptly sold guns to criminals but pressured one another into remaining silent for fear of legal liability.

What a pathetic allegation. Meaningless - - a puff of air.
Leave it to the NY Times to breathlessly make this non-story into the next 'Insider', or whatever that tobacco movie was called.

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