Alphecca

Supremes Decline Gun Case Appeal

A distributor for Glock sells guns to a police department. The police department sells one of the guns to a gun shop. The gun shop sells it to a private collector. The private collector sells it to a mutant who goes on a shooting rampage. All of the transactions -- under current law -- were legal except for the purchase by the mutant himself who was prohibited from owning guns as an ex-convict. Therefore, the maker of the gun -- Glock -- and their distributor must be guilty and liable for the crimes eventually committed three transactions down the road.

No, that doesn't make a shred of sense to me, either, but the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco thought it did when reinstating the liability case in 2003. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court [SCOTUS] has declined without comment to hear the case. From the AP:

The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider dismissing a lawsuit seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the 1999 shooting of a letter carrier by a white supremacist.

Without comment, justices let stand a ruling of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors. The companies' weapons were used by Buford Furrow to kill Filipino-American Joseph Ileto and wound five people at a Jewish day care center in a Los Angeles-area rampage.

The high court's move, which allows the lawsuit to proceed toward trial, is good news for gun-control groups who say increased liability will stop industry sales tactics that put weapons into the hands of criminals. Several cities nationwide have sought to sue gun manufacturers, but with little success.
[...]
Christopher Renzulli, the attorney for Glock and the RSR companies, has said the gun Furrow used to kill Ileto was originally sold to the police department in Cosmopolis, Wash., by the RSR companies.

According to court records, the police department sold the weapon to a gun shop in exchange for a different model. The shop sold it to a gun collector who is alleged to have sold it to Furrow, an ex-convict prohibited from purchasing weapons, at a gun show in Spokane, Wash.

The appeal filed by China North Industries Corp. argued that the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit overstepped its authority in expanding potential liability for gun manufacturers, a role the company says should be reserved for legislatures.

In the original decision reinstating the case, Judge Richard Paez of the 9th Circuit wrote that Glock's marketing strategy creates a "supply of post-police guns that can be sold through unlicensed dealers without background checks to illegal buyers."

I suppose we're left with hoping that whatever jury hears this case will realize how phony it is and find for the defendents. Somehow I don't have much faith that will be the case with a California jury pool...