SENATE SHAMEFULLY BOWS TO NRA & GUN INDUSTRY

Last Friday, after a seven year battle, the Senate finally caved in to the NRA and the gun industry and passed a bill that shields firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits when their weapons are used in crimes.

The bill, S.397 passed the Senate on a vote of 65-31 with 14 Democrats voting ‘yes’ and 2 Republicans voting ‘no’. The bill’s language is very clearly written and leaves no ambiguity at all;

S.397
Title: A bill to prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others.


Listed below are four different cases where guns were used in various crimes. Before the passage of S.397 the victims of these crimes would have been able to sue these ‘manufactures, distributors, dealers or importers’ for their negligence but now with it's passage, ‘civil liability is prohibited’. The bill also applies to current cases that haven't been settled yet when it states it prohibits 'actions' from being 'continued'.

Read the various crime summaries below and decide for yourself if the Senate, the NRA and the gun industry didn’t put the shaft to the American public by passing Senate bill S.397. Do the dealers and manufacturers in these cases now deserve to be shielded from liability for their negligence?



1. Bushmaster, Bull's Eye Shooter Supply Pay $2.5 Million To D.C. Sniper Victims -
In September 2004, the families of victims of the D.C. sniper shootings won a $2.5 million settlement from Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, the dealer who "lost" the snipers' assault rifle, along with at least 238 other guns, and Bushmaster, the assault weapon maker who negligently supplied Bull's Eye despite its disgraceful record of missing guns and regulatory violations. Further, as part of the settlement Bushmaster agreed to inform its dealers of safer sales practices that should prevent other criminals from obtaining guns - something Bushmaster had never done before. Sharing in the settlement were the families of Conrad Johnson, James "Sonny" Buchanan, Hong Im Ballenger, Premkumar Walekar, Sarah Ramos and Linda Franklin, as well as two victims who survived the shootings, Rupinder "Benny" Oberoi and 13-year-old Iran Brown.

2. Gun Dealer Changes Practices, Compensates Wounded Police Officers – In June 2004, Ken McGuire and Dave Lemongello, former New Jersey police officers shot in the line of duty with a trafficked gun negligently sold by a West Virginia dealer, won a $1 million settlement. The dealer had sold the gun, along with 11 other handguns, in a cash sale to a straw buyer for a gun trafficker.

3. Mother Of Slain Seven Year Old Ends Long Fight to Hold Reckless Dealer Accountable - In August 2004, Tennille Jefferson, whose seven-year-old son, Nafis, was unintentionally killed by another child with a trafficked gun, won a settlement from gun dealer Sauers Trading. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the settlement amounted to $850,000. The handgun was one of many the dealer had sold to the trafficker, despite clear signs that the guns were headed straight to the underground market.


4. Kahr Arms - Another case that remains before the courts, is a lawsuit brought by the family of a young man named Danny Guzman, an innocent bystander who was shot on the street in Worcester, Massachusetts on Christmas Eve in 1999. After the shooting, the loaded gun used in the shooting was found behind an apartment building by a four-year-old child. The gun had no serial number.
Police investigators determined that the gun was one of several stolen from Kahr Arms, a Worcester gun manufacturer, by Kahr's own employees who were hired despite their long criminal records. One of the thieves, Mark Cronin, had been hired by Kahr to work in its plant despite his history of crack addiction, theft to support that addiction, alcohol abuse and violence, including several assault and battery charges. Cronin had been able to walk out of the factory with stolen guns, even before they had been stamped with serial numbers. Cronin told an associate that he takes guns from Kahr "all the time" and that he "can just walk out with them." Cronin later pled guilty to the thefts. The investigation also led to the arrest of another Kahr employee, Scott Anderson, who also had a criminal history and who pled guilty to stealing guns from Kahr. At least fifty Kahr firearms disappeared from its manufacturing plant in a five-year period. Worcester Police Captain Paul Campbell classified the record keeping at the Kahr facility as so "shoddy" that it was possible to remove weapons without detection.
Brady Center attorneys represent Danny Guzman's family in a wrongful death suit against Kahr arms, charging Kahr with negligence in completely failing to screen its employees for criminal history and in maintaining a security system so inadequate that employees repeatedly were able to walk out of the plant with unserialized guns.
In April, 2003, a Massachusetts trial judge denied Kahr's motion to dismiss the suit, finding it supported by general principles of Massachusetts law. It is now in pretrial discovery. Had immunity legislation been passed, the ruling of the Massachusetts court would have been nullified and Danny Guzman's family would be denied the right to justice against a gun maker that allowed drug criminals to "help themselves" to free lethal weaponry.


The gun industry has contributed $17 million to Congress since 1990, with two-thirds going to Republicans and, as everyone knows, the NRA is a very powerful and persuasive group.

S.397 is a disgrace in that it's not a bill to protect the constitutional ‘right to bear arms’ but a bill specifically put into law to shield the gun industry from being held responsible for blatant negligence.

As you can plainly see these lawsuits against the gun industry are not always frivilous and the fact that Congress can shield this industry is just one more example of the corruption that runs rampant through it, and the lack of principle that's coming out of it.

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