Posted on 05/21/2004 12:11:22 AM PDT by neverdem
New York City won a significant victory this week in its civil suit against the firearms industry, winning the right to information that could help prove its claim that the industry closes its eyes to the way guns get into the hands of criminals.
On Wednesday, a federal magistrate ruled that the city was entitled to federal data that traces the path of guns used in crimes, overruling objections by the Justice Department. Lawyers say that without the data the city would have difficulty proving its claim that the gun industry's marketing and distribution practices amount to a public nuisance.
The ruling by Magistrate Judge Cheryl L. Pollak, in Federal Court in Brooklyn, waded into a contentious legal and political issue over the Bush administration's reluctance to release the tracing data, which is likely to be helpful to civil suits against the industry around the country. Access to the data has provoked battles in Congress and in the United States Supreme Court, with the gun industry and its opponents squaring off over whether it should be released.
In 2003 and again this year, the Republican-controlled Congress enacted appropriations measures saying that no funds could be used to release the tracing data. Some supporters said the information could undermine police investigations, while industry opponents said groups like the National Rifle Association had slipped the measure in, to hobble the civil suits against the gun industry.
A Justice Department lawyer suggested during arguments in the city's case that the department, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, had changed a government policy that permitted the limited release of the information in an earlier lawsuit.
The lead lawyer on the case at the city's Law Department, Eric Proshansky, said yesterday that the data would enable the city to prove that gun makers have failed to protect the public.
Judge Pollak's decision, Mr. Proshansky said, "is important to the city because the proof in these suits is developed by demonstrating through these databases that the gun industry knows about problems in the distribution networks" that end in sales of guns to criminals.
A similar battle over a demand for the same information from the City of Chicago is being fought in the courts.
The data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms includes the sales history of guns that law enforcement agencies seek to trace. Many of those tracing requests are begun after guns are found in crime investigations. Taken together, the traces can provide a roadmap showing, for example, that some dealers can be identified as tied more often to guns used in crime than others.
Sheree Mixell, the spokeswoman for the bureau, which fought the release of the information, said lawyers were reviewing the decision but the agency would not comment on pending litigation. But other lawyers said they thought it likely that the bureau would appeal, first to the United States district judge handling the city's case, Jack B. Weinstein, and then possibly to an appeals court.
In a lawsuit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoplethat raised claims similar to those in the city's suit, the bureau agreed to release some of the information in 2002. Under that agreement, the access to the information was strictly limited and the information could not be used in any other suit.
The N.A.A.C.P. suit failed. But in a decision last year Judge Weinstein seemed to indicate that the city's suit might have a better chance at success.
Some law enforcement officials have been highly critical of the release of the gun-tracing information, saying it is intended for law enforcement purposes and that its release could compromise investigations by showing which cases police agencies are pursuing.
In a letter to Mr. Ashcroft in 2002, the New York police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, took a position that undercut the argument of the city's civil lawyers in the case against the gun industry. Mr. Kelly said release of the information would "compromise critical law enforcement investigations and endanger the lives of police officers and members of the public.''
Backed by the gun industry, the bureau's lawyers argued in the city's case that the appropriations measures barred the bureau from releasing the information.
In her decision Judge Pollak disagreed, saying that the bureau was required to turn over the data under a city subpoena. The city had agreed that the data would not be distributed outside the case. "Congress,'' she wrote, "did not intend to restrict civil litigants from receiving firearms data pursuant to judicial subpoena.''
In a filing in the case, Mr. Proshansky cited remarks made by a federal lawyer at a hearing last month suggesting that the government's policy had changed under Mr. Ashcroft.
The lawyer, Barry Orlow, deputy associate chief counsel of the bureau, had noted that the firearms bureau was transferred from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department during the government's Homeland Security reorganization in 2003.
"We don't work for the secretary of the Treasury anymore, we work for the attorney general,'' Mr. Orlow said, adding that "policy considerations have changed.''
BANG
Thanks to this silliness, it won't be long before automakers are hauled in for "allowing cars to get into the hands of speeders."
Clue for the anti-Constitutional Leftists: if you want to stop gun violence, stop coddling criminals. When you go after the criminals, you'll solve the gun violence problem. Like, duh?
Pardon me but how does data the gun industry doesn't have access to support the claim they are aware of the consequences of what the data supposedly says?
It doesn't. In the La La Land that liberals live in, producing a product and trying to sell it is proof that you are involved in a conspiracy to damage the public.
Their argument goes something like this:
Guns are bad. If there were no guns, there would be no crime with guns.
Companies that make guns know that they are bad, and that crime is committed with guns, yet they continue to make and sell guns.
Therefore, companies that make guns are responsible for gun crimes.
They further argue that gun companies must put extra-legal restrictions on the sale of guns, knowing that if the gun companies do so, they can be sued for discriminating against people who can legally buy a gun, but who they refuse to sell to.
Do not expect logic from anti-gun zealots. Many of they are hoplophobes who have an irrational fear of guns, a real phobia.
</sarcasm>
That number of agents is nowhere near enough to adequately go though the all forms and check the invoices and inventory at each dealer on a yearly basis. When you look at how much the BATF's budget has grown through the years, it's obvious that the cities should be suing the BATF instead. Of course that doesn't suit their purposes. I don't know why the manufacturers don't raise that point themselves. I think it would not only take the wind out of Wienstein's sails but probably sink the damn boat.
They don't care about violence, and they don't care about criminals. This is about us. This is about establishing a new principle of governance: "The State is absolute Master, and the people, its property and servants, shall not be allowed to own guns."
I respectfully disagree. I submit that that's an act they pull.
This is about politics. This is about "nobody should be allowed to own firearms".
It's the kind of politics we should expect from the Hive Mind of individuals who've been raised to think of themselves as helpless drones and clients of the Master State.
My counter argument would be that gun industry cannot investigate possible bad gun dealers because unlike the Federal government they can be sued if they are wrong. If the BATF raided the wrong house or acted on bad information, they cannot be sued for the damages they caused to an innocent dealer. Gun companies make a mistake, they can be sued. So what do the judges presiding in these cases want the gun manufacturers do? Do nothing and be sued by the cities or act and risk being sued by an innocent gun dealer? My ideal scenerio is when gun dealers red line certain cities based on crime statistics. Problem is they would be sued for racial discrimination business practice. Would be an interesting test case.
The idea stems from an elitist mentality that guns are the problem and that criminals are victims of corporate manipulation or societal failures.
Therefore, they attack the firearms, the corporations and conservative society for the scourge of crime.
Molon Labe!
And providing a timely reminder to Pres. Bush to have those ought-not-to-exist-by-public-law records destroyed, if belatedly.
Congress explicitly forbade, in strong and plain language, the keeping of those NICS check records. DIRTXPOTUS flouted the law and did as he pleased.
He also appointed this 'Judge' to her position.....
The reason we are suppose to be a "nation of laws" and not men, is so that we can go about our day to day business without worry (at least too much) of who is in power at the time.
By running to the courts to gain what they can not gain in the legislature, they are bypassing an important check on the abuse of power.
What are they going to do if when in a few years instead of an activist liberal court, we had a just as activist "conservative" court.
What happens when people start going after abortion providers to prove that their procedure is 100% safe (which they can not do) and begin suing them for ever thing they are worth, and juries award plaintiffs millions of dollars.
What happens when planned parenthood is brought into the suit as a co-defendant, and they are also ordered to pay millions of dollars.
Pick your favorite liberal cause, and wonder what would happen if they were being harassed with petty lawsuits every time they turned around?
The point is, when we allow lawyers to make new law by arguing in front of a friendly judge, we all lose.
The status quo does not remain the status quo, and there will be a time that liberal will be where we are today, wondering what happened to the "rule of law". The answer is they stomped it into the ground, and they will pay a price for that.
They have an irrational fear of firearms in the hands of free people who wish to maintain their freedom.
They have no fear of firearms in the hands of the state.
What a complete fraud. There are 3 levels in the gun industry. The manufacturer like Ruger. The distributor like Nationwide who conducts no retail sales. The dealer like Joe's Guns on 14th St. Arguendo for the moment that a case could be made that somebody up the foodchain from the user is responsible for what the user does with a lawful product, the furthest it can go is the dealer. A distributor couldn't possibly be expected to know that any particular dealer in New York is conducting straw-man sales for example, and would have to resort to completely refusing to sell to any dealer in NYC period. It's even more of a stretch to assume that a manufacturer in Arizona would have any clue what a dealer in NYC is doing since manufacturers almost NEVER have any contact with anyone but a distributor. There are two things going on here; 1. Lawyer feeding time at the zoo, and 2. The throwing of some bones at the anti-gun lobby so they'll make sure the lawyers get an extra helping next time.
That is why the left loves this tactic. It is not about logic or justice. It is about destruction of gun manufactures and the gun culture. In other words, it is about the destruction of freedom and the rule of law, as so much of the "reform" of tort law has been about for the last 50 years.
I do not wonder anymore why I do not want to visit the Big Apple (said with my tongue held out).
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.