Former NRA Atty Ricker with the NAACP

[powerstrk]

With insider as witness, NAACP goes after gun industry
Tom Hays, Associated Press

Published March 21, 2003 NAAC21

NEW YORK -- A former gun lobbyist has agreed to testify for the NAACP in a lawsuit alleging that negligent marketing practices by gun manufacturers and distributors fuels street violence that victimizes minority members.

It will be the first time Robert Ricker, who once worked as an attorney for the National Rifle Association, has testified for gun opponents since he switched allegiance.

"He's a true insider," said attorney Elisa Barnes, who will represent the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at the federal trial set to begin Monday. "He met and worked with the heads of all these companies."

The lawsuit alleges that irresponsible marketing of handguns has "led to disproportionate numbers of injuries, deaths and other damages among those whose interests the [NAACP] represents."

Unlike in other gun liability cases across the country, the NAACP seeks no monetary damages. Instead, it asks for injunctions that would place sweeping restrictions on buyers and sellers of handguns.

Industry advocates deny allegations by Ricker that gunmakers knowingly sell their products to corrupt dealers who supply criminals.

Lawrence Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, called Ricker's claims "outrageous and highly offensive."

"He doesn't scare me in the least," Keane said.

Ricker, 52, made a living as an attorney for the NRA in the 1980s, and later as an executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council, a now-defunct trade group. He had a falling-out with industry executives in the late 1990s after advocating a series of voluntary gun safety measures.

In February, Ricker was reinvented as a whistle-blower. In an affidavit filed in support of a California lawsuit against gun manufacturers, he alleged the industry "knowingly resisted" taking steps to monitor the bulk sale of guns to federally licensed gun dealers.

"It has been a common practice of gun manufacturers and distributors to adopt a 'see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil' approach," Ricker said in court papers.

Gun-control advocates considered the affidavit a bombshell.

"There's no question the industry was shaken by this," said Dennis Henigan, legal director for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "He was one of their major mouthpieces for years."

Ricker, through Barnes, declined to be interviewed.

The NAACP's lawsuit seeks to force distributors to restrict sales to dealers who have storefront outlets, prohibit sales to gun show dealers and limit individual purchasers to one handgun a month.

The more than 80 defendants include Smith & Wesson Corp.; Ruger, Sturm & Co.; and Glock Inc.; as well as several gun distributors.

The defendants argue it's unfair and unlawful to hold them liable for criminal use of a legal product. They also say legislatures -- not courts -- should set standards for sales.

"The industry cares deeply about the lawful sale and distribution of its products," Keane said.

At trial, NAACP lawyers plan to try to bolster Ricker's claims with records from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms detailing how the agency enlists gun manufacturers to trace the source of weapons used in crimes.

Sounds like crapola to me

 

[rock jock]

This isn't biased at all. They gave the NRA two entire sentences to respond.

 

[Cliff]

This is a similar article in the Washington Times I posted on another forum.


Topic: Article in today's Washington Times


Member posted March 24, 2003 07:52 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is one of many reasons why I'm not a member of the NAACP,and never will be.Asinine,narrowminded,and even unamerican,yeah,I said it,UNAMERICAN.

Sorry people,rant off before it starts, Here's the article...

March 24, 2003


Courting anti-gun ambitions



Jacob Sullum

As American soldiers wage war in Iraq, their lives will depend on the weapons they carry. Meanwhile, the industry that makes those weapons is under attack here at home.
In Brooklyn today, jury selection is scheduled to begin in a federal lawsuit blaming gun manufacturers for violent crime. The suit was filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, whose president has called it "an effort to break the backs of those who help perpetuate [the] oversaturation of weapons in our communities."
The NAACP is seeking an injunction that would impose specific restrictions on firearm sales, effectively setting national gun control policy by judicial fiat. It argues that gun-makers have created a "public nuisance" through "negligent marketing" — "oversupplying" their products even though they know some will end up in the hands of criminals.
Sound familiar? The same basic argument has been used, so far unsuccessfully, by municipalities seeking to get money from the industry and regulate it through the courts.
Of 32 gun cases filed by local or state governments (some of which have employed other legal theories), 25 have been partly or completely dismissed. This month a California judge dismissed lawsuits against gun-makers by 12 counties and municipalities that tried to use the public nuisance argument.
The NAACP case is different because it will be heard by U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein, who is notorious for his activism and anti-gun bias. Judge Weinstein presided over the 1999 case Hamilton vs. Accu-Tek, the only case in which a jury has awarded damages based on the negligent marketing theory.
The lawyer in that case was Elisa Barnes, who pioneered this approach and is also handling the NAACP's lawsuit. Miss Barnes went out of her way to ensure that her case was assigned to Judge Weinstein, who will decide the outcome himself, with the jury playing only an advisory role.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), an industry group, notes that Miss Barnes mysteriously omitted Beretta USA, the country's third-largest handgun-maker, from the list of defendants, although the company was included in her earlier suit. Why? Perhaps because Beretta USA and the NAACP are both incorporated in Maryland, which would have made it impossible for Miss Barnes to assert the "diversity jurisdiction" that got her case into federal court.
"No federal court, no Judge Weinstein," the NSSF observes. "Elisa Barnes and the NAACP thought it was more important to have the case heard by Judge Weinstein, who they obviously believe is favorably disposed to their cause, than to have one of the largest and most well-known members of the firearm industry in the case."
Judge Weinstein demonstrated his value to the anti-gun cause in Hamilton vs. Accu-Tek, which was filed by relatives of shooting victims. He let the case proceed when almost any other judge would have dismissed it, and he bullied the jurors into a verdict they would not have arrived at on their own.
The jurors deliberated for six days, repeatedly sending out notes saying they were deadlocked, but Judge Weinstein told them to keep arguing. When they finally announced a verdict, the puzzling mix of seemingly contradictory findings suggested they had tried to split the difference between irreconcilable positions. They said 15 of 25 manufacturers were negligent but only nine were liable, and they awarded damages — half a million dollars, small potatoes by the standards of modern litigation — for only one shooting.
The verdict was effectively nullified by the New York Court of Appeals, which was asked by the federal appeals court to address a key issue involving state law. Concerned about "potentially limitless liability" and "the unfairness of imposing liability for the acts of another," the state court noted that "the connection between defendants, the criminal wrongdoers, and plaintiffs is remote" and that "none of the plaintiffs' proof demonstrated that a change in marketing techniques would likely have prevented their injuries."
If there is a similar outcome in the NAACP case, the campaign to restrict guns through the courts could be nearing its end. Although a handful of city-sponsored cases are proceeding in New Jersey and Ohio, anti-gun litigators are not likely to find a friendlier venue than Judge Weinstein's court.
But if Judge Weinstein sides with the NAACP (as he almost surely will) and his decision is somehow upheld on appeal, it will be a green light to enemies of the Second Amendment and to every judge who fancies himself a legislator.

 

[Standing Wolf]

This isn't biased at all. They gave the NRA two entire sentences to respond.

I'm sure they'll get it right next time.