Abusing the Legal System: Lawsuits against the Gun Industry

The following statements are the author's personal opinion, based on the evidence presented. None of the following is legal advice, I am not a lawyer.
It is my opinion that the mayors of the following cities that have filed lawsuits against gun manufacturers are dishonest and are knowingly abusing the legal system to extort money from legitimate businesses. It is also my opinion that the lawyers who are representing them in these actions are filing lawsuits that they know to be frivolous and without merit. If I were a juror in such a case, I would not be interested in hearing the defense. I'd be willing to throw the case out without listening to the defense, and to assess the plaintiff for all defense fees and punitive damages as well.

Why the comparison of guns to tobacco is pure, unmitigated garbage

Firearms
Alcohol
Tobacco
When used in a responsible manner for their intended purpose, firearms have close to a zero chance of injuring or killing their users or other persons. When used in a responsible manner (not to excess, and not before driving) for its intended purpose, alcohol does not cause health problems or violence. Some doctors even think it reduces the change of heart disease. When used in a responsible manner (not near flammable materials, in bed, or near people who object to it) for their intended purpose, cigarettes increase their user's chance of getting cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses.

Any questions?

My Cross-Examination (J' Accuse!)

  1. Mr. Mayor, you contend that the firearms manufacturers responsible for gunshot deaths and injuries in your city because they should have installed trigger locks on their products. Are these locks installed on the firearms that are carried by your city's police officers? ..... No? Then what you are saying, Mr. Mayor, is that you are knowingly issuing your police officers firearms that you personally believe to be unsafe- in fact, so grossly unsafe that their manufacturers should be held accountable for injuries that are caused with them. Thank you, I'm glad we cleared that up.
  2. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to expand on the first item. You probably know that a large proportion of cop-killings are committed with the officers' own weapons, when the criminals succeed in getting control of them. Trigger locks would certainly prevent these killings, but your police department has not requested firearms with integral trigger locks. Can you tell us why? [The answer, of course, is that these trigger locks would facilitate far more cop-killings by letting violent criminals get off the first- and probably second and third- shots in a gunfight. Or by letting them reach the officer with a knife, club, or other lethal weapon.]
  3. Mr. Mayor, do the Armed Forces of the United States equip their small arms (automatic rifles and pistols) with the trigger locks you describe? [The answer, of course, has to be no.] Then what you are saying, Mr. Mayor, is that the Armed Forces of the United States- professional soldiers whose job is to handle firearms safely, use them effectively, and train recruits to do the same- don't know what they're doing? You're saying that you're better qualified than, for example, an Army general, to say what is and is not a safe firearm?

Dennis Henigan, chief lawyer for Handgun Control, Inc.- hostile witness to his own cause?

This individual is representing New Orleans in its lawsuit against firearm manufacturers. It is impossible for me to see how he can continue doing so after personally proving the defendants' case. Here is the evidence that Mr. Henigan created himself in a demonstration of the handgun locks he and his clients think the gun makers should install:

"At a recent antigun conference in Chicago, Mr. Henigan, who is the top lawyer with Handgun Control Inc., the country's largest gun control organization, waved a version of the [Saf T Lock], extolling how easy it is to operate. Then, punching in what he thought was the correct combination, the lawyer failed to unlock the gun, much to the evident discomfort of the sympathetic audience." He excused his failure with the words, "Even if a klutz like me fumbles on the first try, the benefits of having a lock outweigh the risks." (Barrett, "A Simple Invention Points Up Complexity of Gun-Control Suits," Wall Street Journal, 4/23/99, A1).

Of course, if the firearm is being kept for self-protection, and if it is needed quickly, the user had better not fumble on the first try. He or she is unlikely to get a second. Mr. Henigan messed up under the pressure of a public demonstration, not in the face of a violent assailant who was trying to kill him. It's too bad he didn't do this in a courtroom, in front of a judge and jury. I think the gun makers and their lawyers should introduce it into court, introduce a videotape if one is available, make this Henigan character a hostile witness to his own side. It should utterly destroy his credibility and his case.

NAACP Agrees with white supremacists about Blacks and violence?

Who is the real enemy- "Them," or our own leaders?
Booker T. Washington wrote,
"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs
and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."
This, of course, also applies to a class of white people who make a business out of keeping the alleged troubles, wrongs, and hardships of whites before the public... these people are commonly known as Ku Klux Klansmen, White Aryans, and so on. They foment and then exploit the racism of their largely ill-educated followers for their personal benefit. Whites and Blacks both can learn from Booker T. Washington here.		 In George Orwell's Animal Farm, the animals rebel against their abusive farmer, Jones, and throw him off the farm. The pigs (who symbolize the party bosses) then take special privileges for themselves at the expense of the other farm animals.

"Comrades!" [Squealer the pig] cried. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a privilege of selfishness and privilege. Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole managment and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades," cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, "surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?"

This story could apply to any organization, like the NAACP or a labor union, for example, that once played a very important role in fighting oppression, but that now needs a "cause" or a "bogeyman" to keep its bosses in comfortable positions of power- at the expense of its rank-and-file members.

Kweisi Mifume, useful idiot for the Ku Klux Klan?

Do the statements in the left and right hand columns really say the same thing?
Kweisi Mfume, President & CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People says (excerpted, full text is at the above link, emphasis is mine),
"Easily available handguns are being used to turn many of our communities into war zones," said Mfume. "The fact that the illegal trafficking of firearms disproportionately affects minority communities in this country is indisputable. Urban communities have sadly become so accustomed to the prevalence of firearms in their neighborhoods that they are no longer shocked at the sound of gunfire." 

 According to a 1998 National Vital Statistics Report, African American males between the ages of 15-24 are almost five times more likely to be injured by firearms than white males in the same age group. Black females in that category are almost four times more likely to be injured by firearms than white females. Firearm homicide has been the leading cause of death among young African American males for nearly 30 years.

Compare Mr. Mfume's statments to those at right.

Mr. Mfume, your honorary sheet and pillowcase with eyeholes are on the way... maybe gun manufacturers and dealers could accommodate you by putting "Whites Only" signs on their establishments... 

Attorney Elisa Barnes hopes that Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will sue the gun makers. "'If an aggressive law firm is handling such a suit, it would be a wonderful development, adding momentum to what we are already doing.' ... Ms. Barnes, together with the New York law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg, also recently filed a suit against the gun industry on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People." ("HUD May Join Assault on Gun Makers," Wall Street Journal, 7/28/99, A3)
 

Note the links to both the NAACP and the KKK (as of 7/29/99)- check them yourself if you think I'm making these quotes up or taking them out of context.
 The National Association for the Abuse of Colored People (picture shown below- if this picture offends you, the statements in the left column should offend you, too!) says,
Image credits and copyright: http://www.stentorian.com/credits.html
  • "When you look at the fact that at only 12% of the population, blacks account for 64% of violent crime and they are expected to dramatically increase, we can only assume that we are indeed in for far more serious and troubled time then we can imagine." KKK District 9 (found by Alta Vista search on url:kukluxklan.org and "Blacks" and "guns")
  •  from http://www.webnexus.com/users/pactive/library/racial.txt, says,  "An article in Virginia's official university law review called for a "prohibitive tax...on the privilege" of selling handguns as a way of disarming "the son of Ham", whose "cowardly practice of `toting' guns has been one of the most fruitful sources of crime....Let a negro board a railroad train with a quart of mean whiskey and a pistol in his grip and the chances are that there will be a murder, or at least a row, before he alights."  [Comment, Carrying Concealed Weapons, 15 Va L. Reg. 391, 391-92 (1909); George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, "Gun Control and Racism," Stefan Tahmassebi, 1991, p. 75]  Thus, many Southern States imposed high taxes or banned inexpensive guns so as to price blacks and poor whites out of the gun market."
  • From today's Triple K again: "Negro rappers such as IceT who gave us the song "Cop Killer" are elevated to hero status and the inner city dwellers are all to eager to live up to the songs [sic] message." As you can see, the Ku Klux Klanspeople kant spel too good... but you can see where they're coming from. (found by Alta Vista search on url:kukluxklan.org and "Blacks" and "guns")
  • Again from http://www.webnexus.com/users/pactive/library/racial.txt :the law was passed in Tennessee in 1870. "In the first legislative session in which they gained control, white supremacists passed "An Act to Preserve the Peace and Prevent Homicide," which banned the sale of all handguns except the expensive "Army and Navy model handgun" which whites already owned or could afford to buy, and blacks could not. ("Gun Control:  White Man's Law," William R. Tonso, Reason, December 1985)  Upheld in Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. (3 Heisk.)165, 172 (1871) (GMU CR LJ, p. 74) ... As B. Bruce-Briggs has written in the Public Interest, `It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the `Saturday Night Special' is emphasized because it is cheap and being sold to a particular class of people. The name is sufficient evidence -- the reference is to `niggertown Saturday night.'"
    • Now you see the origin of the term "Saturday Night Special," the inexpensive firearms the liberals want to ban. Like the words "gyp" (referring to Gypsies) and "welsh" (referring to people from Wales), "Saturday Night Special" makes some highly offensive and racist assumptions about certain groups of people.

The United African Movement: Another Useful Idiot for the Klan

In 1988, Alton Maddox (an associate of Al "Here's my list of honkies white men who raped Tawana Brawley" Sharpton), one of the UAM's leaders, said, he "...has no patience for blacks who waste their lives in school and college. By studying less and spending more time in the streets, they might accomplish more for their people." Now, Mr. Maddox spent plenty of time in school to get his law degree. Of course, as a "pig" (Orwellian party boss), I suppose he did this for the sake of the lesser animals, or proletarians. During the bad old days of slavery, it was actually illegal in many slave states to teach a Black person to read and write. The slave owners, the Simon Legrees, believed that an educated Negro was an empowered Negro, so they passed these "no schooling for Blacks" laws to keep Black people "in their place." Now that Simon Legree & Co. are long gone to the (tr)ash heap of history, the "pigs," the party bosses, still need to keep their followers "in their place." Thank you, Mr. Maddox, I think we understand your position perfectly. Now, are your followers- and Mr. Mfume's- still bleating, "Four legs good, two legs better!" or have they recognized you for what you are?
"No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
-George Orwell, the conclusion of Animal Farm
 

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