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Lawyers Dispute Data on Guns in Crime Cases
By DIANE CARDWELL
Lawyers representing the gun industry challenged an analysis yesterday showing the source of guns tied to crimes in New York. The N.A.A.C.P., which is suing gun manufacturers and distributors, argues that the analysis helps show that the industry has long known that its distribution policies permit guns to reach criminals.
The analysis was done by Howard Andrews, a Columbia biostatistics professor at its School of Public Health, for a lawsuit against dozens of gun manufacturers and distributors filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The case is being heard in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
Dr. Andrews was given access to long-suppressed data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that included the sales history of guns that have been traced after being found in crime investigations.
The analysis showed that 90 percent of the guns recovered in crime investigations in New York from 1996 to 2000 were bought out of state. But the analysis also found that three New York City gun dealers and one on Long Island were among the 10 dealers that sold the most guns recovered in the investigations.
Industry lawyers, however, have contended that the bureau's information was never intended to be used to draw statistical conclusions about gun distribution, and in cross-examining Dr. Andrews, they sought to portray the analysis as selective and perhaps even irrelevant.
Much of the cross-examination yesterday, the bulk of which was conducted by Thomas E. Fennell, a lawyer representing Colt's Manufacturing Company, focused on what Dr. Andrews's analysis did not include, like the relative age of the guns being recovered in crimes, when they were originally sold and how much time had elapsed between the sale of the gun and its use in a crime. The analysis relied on only a few out of hundreds of factors available, Mr. Fennell contended.
But Dr. Andrews said he had eliminated the factors that were not appropriate to answering the question of where guns recovered in connection with crimes had first been sold to an individual at retail.
"I was simply trying to say where they come from," he said.
Outside the courtroom, industry officials also sought to diminish the significance of a gun's having been traced at all.
"Just because a trace has been performed on a firearm does not mean anyone in the chain of distribution — the manufacturer, distributor or dealer — has done anything illegal or improper," Lawrence G. Keane, vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said in a statement. Mr. Keane added that law enforcement officials perform traces on firearms found in homes where crimes have been committed, at the homes of deceased people or on firearms used in self-defense.
The N.A.A.C.P. is not seeking money in its lawsuit but instead wants to force the industry to do more to hold gun dealers accountable. A bill recently approved by the House Judiciary Committee would render the suit and others like it moot by retroactively granting gunmakers immunity from many kinds of legal action.
Editor:
The following is excerpted from the above mentioned article.
"The N.A.A.C.P. is not seeking money in its lawsuit but instead wants to force the industry to do more to hold gun dealers accountable. A bill recently approved by the House Judiciary Committee would render the suit and others like it moot by retroactively granting gunmakers immunity from many kinds of legal action."
In actual fact, assuming that someone might be interested in dry old facts, "granting gunmakers immunity from many kinds of legal action" is something that H.R. 1036, the House passed proposal, simply does not do. For instance, suits arising from products found to have been defective in materials or workmanship are not immunized, nor are criminal acts by makers, distributors or retail dealers.
What the industry is immunized against are suits based on the illegal acts of people subject to neither influence nor control as might be exerted by the firearms industry, in other words, the industry is immunized against suits arising from the criminal actions of others. By the way, should you get drunk, and while driving your car, when perhaps you should not even be walking, you kill or injure a couple of people, or an individual, they cannot bring suit against General Motors, the maker of the Buick you were driving, nor can they being suit against the local Buick dealer.
Isn't it funny, how things like that seem always to escape the notice of so many in journalism?
By DIANE CARDWELL
Lawyers representing the gun industry challenged an analysis yesterday showing the source of guns tied to crimes in New York. The N.A.A.C.P., which is suing gun manufacturers and distributors, argues that the analysis helps show that the industry has long known that its distribution policies permit guns to reach criminals.
The analysis was done by Howard Andrews, a Columbia biostatistics professor at its School of Public Health, for a lawsuit against dozens of gun manufacturers and distributors filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The case is being heard in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
Dr. Andrews was given access to long-suppressed data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that included the sales history of guns that have been traced after being found in crime investigations.
The analysis showed that 90 percent of the guns recovered in crime investigations in New York from 1996 to 2000 were bought out of state. But the analysis also found that three New York City gun dealers and one on Long Island were among the 10 dealers that sold the most guns recovered in the investigations.
Industry lawyers, however, have contended that the bureau's information was never intended to be used to draw statistical conclusions about gun distribution, and in cross-examining Dr. Andrews, they sought to portray the analysis as selective and perhaps even irrelevant.
Much of the cross-examination yesterday, the bulk of which was conducted by Thomas E. Fennell, a lawyer representing Colt's Manufacturing Company, focused on what Dr. Andrews's analysis did not include, like the relative age of the guns being recovered in crimes, when they were originally sold and how much time had elapsed between the sale of the gun and its use in a crime. The analysis relied on only a few out of hundreds of factors available, Mr. Fennell contended.
But Dr. Andrews said he had eliminated the factors that were not appropriate to answering the question of where guns recovered in connection with crimes had first been sold to an individual at retail.
"I was simply trying to say where they come from," he said.
Outside the courtroom, industry officials also sought to diminish the significance of a gun's having been traced at all.
"Just because a trace has been performed on a firearm does not mean anyone in the chain of distribution — the manufacturer, distributor or dealer — has done anything illegal or improper," Lawrence G. Keane, vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said in a statement. Mr. Keane added that law enforcement officials perform traces on firearms found in homes where crimes have been committed, at the homes of deceased people or on firearms used in self-defense.
The N.A.A.C.P. is not seeking money in its lawsuit but instead wants to force the industry to do more to hold gun dealers accountable. A bill recently approved by the House Judiciary Committee would render the suit and others like it moot by retroactively granting gunmakers immunity from many kinds of legal action.
Editor:
The following is excerpted from the above mentioned article.
"The N.A.A.C.P. is not seeking money in its lawsuit but instead wants to force the industry to do more to hold gun dealers accountable. A bill recently approved by the House Judiciary Committee would render the suit and others like it moot by retroactively granting gunmakers immunity from many kinds of legal action."
In actual fact, assuming that someone might be interested in dry old facts, "granting gunmakers immunity from many kinds of legal action" is something that H.R. 1036, the House passed proposal, simply does not do. For instance, suits arising from products found to have been defective in materials or workmanship are not immunized, nor are criminal acts by makers, distributors or retail dealers.
What the industry is immunized against are suits based on the illegal acts of people subject to neither influence nor control as might be exerted by the firearms industry, in other words, the industry is immunized against suits arising from the criminal actions of others. By the way, should you get drunk, and while driving your car, when perhaps you should not even be walking, you kill or injure a couple of people, or an individual, they cannot bring suit against General Motors, the maker of the Buick you were driving, nor can they being suit against the local Buick dealer.
Isn't it funny, how things like that seem always to escape the notice of so many in journalism?
