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Court turns down NYC case against gun industry

bcr229

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Now NYC needs to pay the defendants' court costs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_gun_lawsuits

Court turns down NYC case against gun industry


WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has turned away pleas by New York City and gun violence victims to hold the firearms industry responsible for selling guns that could end up in illegal markets.

The justices' decision Monday ends lawsuits first filed in 2000. Federal appeals courts in New York and Washington threw out the complaints after Congress passed a law in 2005 giving the gun industry broad immunity against such lawsuits.

The city's lawsuit asked for no monetary damages. It had sought a court order for gun makers to more closely monitor those dealers who frequently sell guns later used to commit crimes.

But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law provides the gun industry with broad immunity from lawsuits brought by crime victims and violence-plagued cities. The Supreme Court refused to reconsider that decision.

The lawsuit was first brought in June 2000 while Rudy Giuliani was New York mayor. It was delayed due to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and because of similar litigation in the state courts.

The city refiled the lawsuit in January 2004, saying manufacturers let handguns reach illegal markets at gun shows in which non-licensed people can sell to other private citizens; through private sales in which background checks are not required; by oversupplying markets where gun regulations are lax, and by having poor overall security.

The city said a state nuisance law makes it a crime to knowingly or recklessly create a condition endangering the safety or health of a considerable number of people. But the appeals court said New York's law does not qualify as an exception to federal law. It agreed with U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, signed by President George W. Bush in 2005, is constitutional.

The cases are City of New York v. Beretta, 08-530, and Lawson v. Beretta, 08-545.
 

spy1

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/washington/10guns.html?_r=1&hpPublished: March 9, 2009 WASHINGTON — New York City’s nine-year lawsuit accusing gun makers of flooding illicit markets with their firearms came to an end on Monday, when the Supreme Court refused to consider a lower court’s dismissal of the case.
Without comment, the justices decided not to review a ruling by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which declared last April 30 that federal law protected the manufacturers from such suits.
The appeals court had overturned a decision by Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who ruled in 2005 that the suit could proceed despite protests by such gun makers as Beretta U.S.A., Browning Arms, Colt Manufacturing, Glock and Smith & Wesson. The gun companies complained that a federal law passed just two months earlier shielded them from such suits.
The law, formally the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, banned suits against the firearms industry, except when a plaintiff could prove that gun makers had violated state or federal statutes in their sales and marketing practices.
In its suit, New York City contended that the gun makers had done just that, by failing to monitor firearms retailers closely enough and thus allowing guns to end up in the hands of criminals. Therefore, the city argued, the manufacturers had created a “condition that negatively affects the public health or safety,” and consequently were in violation of New York State’s public-nuisance law.
But the federal appeals court, in the ruling that the Supreme Court declined on Monday to reconsider, said the public-nuisance law did not create an exception to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that would allow a suit.
The lawsuit did not seek monetary damages but, rather, an order directing the gun makers to more closely monitor the dealers who sold their wares — too often to criminals, the city contended.
Gun manufacturers have been sued dozens of times by city and state officials across the country, without success. Lawyers for New York City may have been heartened by the fact that one member of the three-judge appeals court panel dissented, arguing that the New York State Court of Appeals, the state’s highest tribunal, should have been asked to decide whether the state public-nuisance law was an exception under the federal law. But that dissent was not enough to persuade the Supreme Court to take a look at the case.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made gun-trafficking one of his signature issues. In 2006, the city sued 27 gun dealers in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, claiming that their lax screening practices created a public nuisance in New York City. That suit has achieved some victories, with at least two arms dealers being forced out of business.
 

Tekman

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That suit has achieved some victories, with at least two arms dealers being forced out of business.
You gotta love that spin.

Mom and pop gun shops = Arms dealers

Litigated into bankruptcy = forced out of business.
 

Legba

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Good news. The bottom line is that law enforcement is not the responsibility of the manufacturers. Let the ATF do compliance checks, as they already do. But what do I know? I'm part of the problem, to hear the Bloomberg-istas tell it.

-ljp
 

SouthernBoy

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Sad and hollow victory because there were FFL dealers who were either put out of business or forced out due to this illegal and insidious crap. They should be fully compensated for losses past, present, and future for this horrendous action.
 

deepdiver

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It is sad that this required any legislative action to lead the judiciary from seeing the absurdity of the entire lawsuit. What's next? Lawsuits against GM for drunk driving? Against Chiquita for slips and falls? Against Hershey's for obesity? Sadly, probably so...
 

YllwFvr

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FMCDH wrote:
deepdiver wrote:
It is sad that this required any legislative action to lead the judiciary from seeing the absurdity of the entire lawsuit. What's next? Lawsuits against GM for drunk driving? Against Chiquita for slips and falls? Against Hershey's for obesity? Sadly, probably so...
We are already there...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/02/21/obesity.lawsuit/
*Facepalm*
 

FMCDH

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Look, we all know the primary factor that faces us on 2nd amendment issues and any other civil liberty issue is that too many Americans are looking for a scapegoat to explain why THEY don't feel warm and fuzzy inside.

People who are not right with themselves have to believe its someone elses fault that they are afraid, or fat, or whatever. Too many people don't want to take personal responsibility for their own actions and feelings.

When you have generation after generation of Americans taught that regardless of circumstances, they are not responsible in any way for whatever befalls them, then you get sheep.

Criminals and sheep have something in common, and that's they always seek the easy path as they see it. Is it any wonder that the majority of sheep identify and feel sorry for the criminals more than they do the their own law abiding brothers and sisters who are telling them that if they only took some personal responsibility for their own existence they would be much better off?

When a person is feeling lost and looking for a way to feel right with the world, do you really think they are going to pick the tougher path that leads back themselves most the time?

Not with the way we educate our citizens today.

"People make the best decision with the information they have available to them, and if the person in question is inclined to take the least amount of responsibility for each given decision, you have a combination that is dangerous and often times, hereditary, and not often enough fatal, in our padded society."

~FMCDH~
 
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