Alphecca

Bushmaster & Bull's Eye Settle

Rather than pay a fortune to lawyers, Bushmaster and the Bull's Eye shop have settled with victims of the DC snipers. From Reuters:

The company that made the Bushmaster rifle used in the Washington-area sniper killings and a gun shop that lost track of the firearm agreed to pay $2.5 million to victims in what lawyers said on Thursday was an unprecedented settlement.

The payout for eight victims of the October 2002 shootings was the first of its kind by a gun manufacturer accused of negligent distribution of firearms, said Daniel Vice, an attorney with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of the victims.
...
Bushmaster Firearms Inc. of Windham, Maine, which makes the civilian version of the military M-16 rifle, agreed to pay $550,000 to the families of six victims and two survivors of the shootings.

The Bull's Eye Gun Shop in Tacoma, Washington, near Seattle, also agreed to pay $2 million. Bull's Eye has said that the Bushmaster rifle used in the shootings disappeared from its shop.

"This has now set a precedent nationwide that gunmakers and gun dealers will be held responsible if they continue to sell guns to criminals," Vice said.

Well, not exactly. As the article (to its credit) points out, Bushmaster disagrees. From the Bushmaster web site:

The Washington DC Brady Group would have you believe they won some kind of victory! The Brady Group brought this lawsuit not for the victims, but for their anti-gun agenda. The Brady Group asked for the settlement conference after reviewing all the evidence they knew they could not be successful in court and they wanted to stop paying lawyer fees.

The Brady Group sent a second tier lawyer to the settlement conference with nine demands on Bushmaster regarding business practices and Bushmaster denied them all. We then gave the Brady Group our statement that we support the BATF licensing requirements to be a Federal Firearms Licensed (FFL) holder and our support for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) safety programs, and they accepted our statement. We did not agree and would not agree to change the way we do business or make any additional demands of our customers. We were emphatic that Bushmaster did not commit any wrong doings.

The attorney for our insurance company was at the settlement conference and informed us that about half of our policy limits had been spent on trial lawyers. It was the insurance company’s position that all of the limit would be spent on this case, and therefore turned the funds over to Bushmaster to use as we saw fit removing the insurance company from the case. Our choice was to continue spending it on trial lawyers or turn it over directly to the victims’ families with no funds going to the Brady Group for their legal fees.

We felt the compassionate thing to do was give it to the victims’ families, not because we had to but because we wanted to. The Washington DC Brady Group should learn what compassion is really all about!

Bushmaster strongly believes and vigorously supports the rights of citizens to own and use firearms, and the settlement of this case in no way compromises that stand. The Brady Group’s attempt at claiming a victory over firearms manufacturers is a hollow one with no substance. Their attempt to eliminate gun rights of citizens has failed legislatively and will continue to fail with these frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers.

So there. Unfortunately and contrary to what the trial lawyers would have municipalities believe (as an inducement to file suits), companies such as Bushmaster don't have deep pockets. In this case it was better to settle. They actually got off easy as these types of suits go. I don't think they did anything wrong AT ALL but alas, we live in a litigious world, either for profit or to force legislation.

As for the Bull's Eye sporting shop, I can't feel too sorry for them because they've had numerous past instances of "lost" inventory. Something was going on there and the BATF seemed to ignore it.

Obviously the real blame should have been put on the two mutants who committed these horrible crimes. Life in prison for them seems not nearly severe enough for me.

Back to the article... You knew the writer would then have to bring up the impending end to the "assault weapons" ban:

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would limit lawsuits against the gun industry. The bill was backed by the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby. Some critics of the legislation contended it would block lawsuits such as the sniper case.

But companion legislation was defeated in the Senate after it was modified to include an extension of the assault weapons ban, set to expire on Monday. The NRA also strongly opposed any extension of the assault weapons ban.

Snider, who spoke at a news conference at the Brady Center in Washington, D.C., said her "biggest fear" was that now-banned automatic weapons would become available to the public.

"I'm appalled at that and I hope President Bush is listening and I hope that he changes that, he doesn't let it expire, that he continues the ban on assault weapons," she said.

This ignores the fact that the firearm the DC sniper mutants used is NOT one of the "banned" guns. Clearly the Reuters writer is simply trying to stir things up against the demise of the AWB. *Sigh*

All I can think of is that all this will get even worse if Kerry gets into the White House.

Posted by Jeff Soyer at September 10, 2004 02:57 PM