Harold Mayo
Member
My comments in bold:
Ex-Gun Lobbyist to Testify Against NRA
By TOM HAYS
.c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - A former gun lobbyist has agreed to testify for the NAACP in a lawsuit alleging negligent marketing practices by gun manufacturers and distributors fuels street violence that victimizes minorities.
Yeah, I'm sure that the white-led gun industry sits around talking about how to better market its products to inner-city black street gangs...yeah, that's where the money is...
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 irresponsible marketing of handguns has ``led to disproportionate numbers of injuries, deaths and other damages among those whose interests the (NAACP) represents.''
So I don't suppose the generations of poor blacks who haven't struggled up out of poverty since the Civil War would ever shoot one another over drugs in the inner cities if the gun manufacturers didn't intentionally market handguns toward their sub-culture? Oh, yeah, the billboards advertising Colt .45...wait a minute, that's a beer! Oh, well...close enough. Their tactics and allegations don't have to be true...they just have to win sympathy.
Unlike 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.
So...it's not about damages...ok. It's that the NAACP is being used as a tool by the liberal gun-grabbers. Anyone think that being used for someone else's agenda smacks of oppression?
Industry advocates deny allegations by Ricker that gun makers knowingly sell their products to corrupt dealers who supply criminals.
Yeah, I'm sure that it's a big industry to supply guns to criminals. Anyone remember the statistic that some large percentage of guns could be traced back to certain holders of FFLs? Likely the biggest distributors of firearms who sell to dealers rather than the public, anyway. But the general non-gunny public doesn't realize the relationship so they think that a small group of license-holders are intentionally dealing to criminals. What a joke.
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.
Oh...ok. So he didn't make it as an attorney for the NRA or chose to leave because he wanted more money, joined or formed the American Shooting Sports Council and it was a flop. He advocated something that wasn't popular because he was a weasel, anyway, more than likely, and got booted out of the industry. So he's really impartial in his testimony, I'm sure. Yeah.
In February, Ricker was reinvented as a whistleblower. 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.
I would "knowingly resist", too. Why spend MORE of my profit in a relatively low-profit industry to monitor the sales of a tool and recreational item? I wouldn't "knowingly resist", I would flat refuse.
``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.
So? I would rather someone take that approach than one in which they "saw-all-evil, heard-all-evil, and spoke-all-evil". I hate a busybody. Mind your own business. It's just like those civilians who have nothing better to do with their time than drive around with a video camera and tape people driving and violating some law and then call the police and turn them in. Stupid
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 for this story.
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.
Is that the purview of the courts? That sounds more like something that law MAKERS, not interpreters of the law should be doing.
The more than 80 defendants include Smith & Wesson Corp., Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Glock Inc., as well as several gun distributors.
The defendants argue it's unfair and unlawful to hold them liable for the criminal use of a legal product. They also say legislatures - not courts - should set standards for sales.
That's right
``The industry cares deeply about the lawful sale and distribution of its products,'' Keane said.
Well...if so, just for liability reasons. What someone does with a tool is their business and doesn't reflect on the tool or the maker of the tool. Can't the blame for an action stop with the guy who does the murder? Why was it his gun or the maker of the gun who is responsible? Let's go and find everyone who treated him badly in his life and accuse them of making the guy like he is, find his aged grandmother and try her for mistreating his father, etc., etc...where does it end?
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. The data, the lawyers argue, show the defendants knew which dealers were disreputable but still sold them weapons.
Disreputable? That sounds awfully subjective.
Barnes used jurisdictional rules to steer the case to U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, who is considered sympathetic to gun control. The judge has decided the jury will play only an ``advisory role,'' leaving himself to make the final determination on liability and remedy.
AH...now THAT sounds ominous. A single individual who is likely a liberal making the decision.
In its literature, the gun lobby has bemoaned the case, calling Barnes a ``radical anti-gun lawyer,'' and Weinstein an ``activist, anti-gun jurist.''
Truth at last.
Ex-Gun Lobbyist to Testify Against NRA
By TOM HAYS
.c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - A former gun lobbyist has agreed to testify for the NAACP in a lawsuit alleging negligent marketing practices by gun manufacturers and distributors fuels street violence that victimizes minorities.
Yeah, I'm sure that the white-led gun industry sits around talking about how to better market its products to inner-city black street gangs...yeah, that's where the money is...
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 irresponsible marketing of handguns has ``led to disproportionate numbers of injuries, deaths and other damages among those whose interests the (NAACP) represents.''
So I don't suppose the generations of poor blacks who haven't struggled up out of poverty since the Civil War would ever shoot one another over drugs in the inner cities if the gun manufacturers didn't intentionally market handguns toward their sub-culture? Oh, yeah, the billboards advertising Colt .45...wait a minute, that's a beer! Oh, well...close enough. Their tactics and allegations don't have to be true...they just have to win sympathy.
Unlike 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.
So...it's not about damages...ok. It's that the NAACP is being used as a tool by the liberal gun-grabbers. Anyone think that being used for someone else's agenda smacks of oppression?
Industry advocates deny allegations by Ricker that gun makers knowingly sell their products to corrupt dealers who supply criminals.
Yeah, I'm sure that it's a big industry to supply guns to criminals. Anyone remember the statistic that some large percentage of guns could be traced back to certain holders of FFLs? Likely the biggest distributors of firearms who sell to dealers rather than the public, anyway. But the general non-gunny public doesn't realize the relationship so they think that a small group of license-holders are intentionally dealing to criminals. What a joke.
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.
Oh...ok. So he didn't make it as an attorney for the NRA or chose to leave because he wanted more money, joined or formed the American Shooting Sports Council and it was a flop. He advocated something that wasn't popular because he was a weasel, anyway, more than likely, and got booted out of the industry. So he's really impartial in his testimony, I'm sure. Yeah.
In February, Ricker was reinvented as a whistleblower. 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.
I would "knowingly resist", too. Why spend MORE of my profit in a relatively low-profit industry to monitor the sales of a tool and recreational item? I wouldn't "knowingly resist", I would flat refuse.
``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.
So? I would rather someone take that approach than one in which they "saw-all-evil, heard-all-evil, and spoke-all-evil". I hate a busybody. Mind your own business. It's just like those civilians who have nothing better to do with their time than drive around with a video camera and tape people driving and violating some law and then call the police and turn them in. Stupid
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 for this story.
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.
Is that the purview of the courts? That sounds more like something that law MAKERS, not interpreters of the law should be doing.
The more than 80 defendants include Smith & Wesson Corp., Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Glock Inc., as well as several gun distributors.
The defendants argue it's unfair and unlawful to hold them liable for the criminal use of a legal product. They also say legislatures - not courts - should set standards for sales.
That's right
``The industry cares deeply about the lawful sale and distribution of its products,'' Keane said.
Well...if so, just for liability reasons. What someone does with a tool is their business and doesn't reflect on the tool or the maker of the tool. Can't the blame for an action stop with the guy who does the murder? Why was it his gun or the maker of the gun who is responsible? Let's go and find everyone who treated him badly in his life and accuse them of making the guy like he is, find his aged grandmother and try her for mistreating his father, etc., etc...where does it end?
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. The data, the lawyers argue, show the defendants knew which dealers were disreputable but still sold them weapons.
Disreputable? That sounds awfully subjective.
Barnes used jurisdictional rules to steer the case to U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, who is considered sympathetic to gun control. The judge has decided the jury will play only an ``advisory role,'' leaving himself to make the final determination on liability and remedy.
AH...now THAT sounds ominous. A single individual who is likely a liberal making the decision.
In its literature, the gun lobby has bemoaned the case, calling Barnes a ``radical anti-gun lawyer,'' and Weinstein an ``activist, anti-gun jurist.''
Truth at last.
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