A discussion area and topics of interest pertaining to 2nd Amendment issues. Below are a few of the assaults on gun owners and gun rights in general. It's difficult to understand the vilification of firearms and some of the tactics are listed below.
True Gun Control is hitting what you aim at!
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I recently received an email from a Hillary supporter claiming she will be President and that I should "eat shit and die." To those supporters of this pretender and her husband, I can only recommend the anti-Clinton Library site and hope they read and comprehend. How anyone can support these people in view of all they have done against the People of the United States is beyond me. |
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Dell Computer - if you own a gun or a gun business, you're probably a terrorist. A boycott is definitely warranted. |
Washington Post Article about Dell
Urban Legends Page about Dell
Michael Dell's Excuse
Visit TSRA Web Site to look at more.
Link to HCI showing Dell as a supplier who contributes back to them. This is available to any club or organization, not just HCI.
Austin American Statesman - article covering Dell foul up 3/1/2002.
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Hildebeast for President! Hillary Clinton wants to be your president. Decide now if she represents YOUR views. |
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The Hamilton Case - an attempt to move responsibility for the criminal misuse of firearms from the criminal to the the manufacturers and retailers. |
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Cartoon Hall of Fame - previous cartoons uses on this site. |
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Bogus
Lawsuits a crime against gun-owning public, by John R. Lott, Jr. |
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New
York Jury finds gun manufacturers liable in shooting deaths. |
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The text of Charlton Heston's speech to Harvard Law School, Feburary 1999. |
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U.S. Senator James M. Inhofe -- Floor Statement - March, 1999. Concerns President Clinton's transfer of nuclear technology to China. Clinton has got to be China's new poster boy. |
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Guns & Ammo - Street Cop
Article - May 1999. |
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Dillon Press - When Wolves Hunt, April, 1999 |
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Inching Toward Armageddon - from the World Net Daily News, April '99 |
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Darrell Scott, the father of Columbine Student Rachel Scott - testimony in Washington, DC, May, 1999. |
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Clinton Rails against gun owners - from Capitol Hill Blue, June 5, 1999. |
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Clinton's Pissed by defeat in Congress, from Capitol Hill Blue, June 18, 1999 |
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Clinton's Double-Dealing - what hyprocrisy is this? |
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Hanoi Jane Fonda - 100 Women of the 20th Century? No Way Jose!!!! November, 1999. |
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Clinton's Abuse of Executive Orders - Stealing our Rights and those of the elected Congress. November, 1999 |
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CDC - Report that Gun Deaths continue a steady decline - have you seen this covered by 60 Minutes? And why does HCI get to put a quote with the piece and not the NRA? November, 1999 |
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Crime Drop Reported - Surely Gun Control caused this? November, 1999 |
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Here's How They'll Take Your Guns - Austin-American Statesman Poll, November, 1999 |
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Demonization of Gun Owners - a very one-sided bias demonstrated by the Press - November, 1999 - from Mike Brown's site. |
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Wyoming Sheriffs reclaim part of the constitution. - January, 2000 |
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Suing Gunmakers is frivolous - an article by Ken Hamblin - January 6, 2000. |
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7 Myths of Gun Control - a report from the Media Research Center. |
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More "Executive Order" Abuse - Clinton issues order increase scrutiny of Federally Licensed Firearms dealers - Feb 4, 2000. |
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Creating Hysteria Over Guns - an article by Dr. John Lott - Feb 6, 2000. |
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New Mexico Secession Bill - We don't need no stinkin' Federal Land or Gun Grabs. |
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Lessons from the Twentieth Century - by Mike Vanderboegh as it appears in The Hawaiian Rifleman. |
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24 Prerequisites to being a Modern Liberal Democrat. |
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Real Gun Control? - this is what government gun confiscation can lead to. |
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Racial Killings & Gun Control - David Horowitz's article in Salon Magazine. |
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Tyranny Response Team - fighting back against Sarah Brady. |
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Gun Control Failure in Australia - look at the statistics. |
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Women's Firearms Alert - a wake up call for women, and everyone, about gun controls. |
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Tyranny Response Team - April 2000 rally against Bill Clinton. |
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Storm Troopers - Elian Gonzalez kidnapped by U. S. Government (Bill and Janet) |
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Window Wars - a work of fiction. |
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When Guns Are Banned - a pondering by Lionel Waxman about Washington, D.C. |
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Gun Buy Back in D.C. - surely not since guns are illegal in the District. |
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Million Mom March - is there a brain out there? |
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More Million Mom March - a total sham on the statistics. |
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Outgunned - Media Bias Against Gun Owners. |
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Rosie O'Donnell - her bodyguards need guns. Ironic, yes? |
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N. Y. State files suit against gun manufacturers. Certainly cars have killed & maimed more people? |
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The Registration Process in England - a report from a friend. |
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Al
Gore's Big Lie - another slap in the face of Vietnam Veterans. |
AMERICAN FIREARMS INDUSTRY
A newsletter magazine published for members of the National Association of Firearms
Retailers.
The article appearing below appeared in the March 1998 issue and related to a
lawsuit filed attempting to link the use of firearms back to the manufactures and
retailers. If successful, this type of lawsuit would penalize the misuse of firearms
all the way back to the manufacturers and resellers. What's next, automobiles,
hammers, axes, saws, you name it, is someone uses it in a crime, the lawyers want to
penalize the manufacturers and retailers. In this politically correct society, NO
ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS ANY MORE. What happened to common
sense? The lawyers have seen to it that if you have no common sense, you can sue
because it's someone else's fault.
"THE HAMILTON CASE"
by Andrew Molchan, NAFLFD Director
Dear NAFLFD Member:
The long cooking Hamilton Case is scheduled for trial in November. It involves 32 handgun
manufacturers and 35 distributors who are charged with liability for the criminal misuse
of the firearms they sell.
There are some in the industry who argue that the Hamilton Case should be defended along
very narrow lines of manufacturers NOT being responsible for the misuse of their product,
and THAT'S ALL. Yesterday's usual attitude of "let's dodge this bullet." In my
humble opinion, that would be a tactical win, but a horrible strategic loss. All that
would do would be to buy our industry more like-style lawsuits in different areas, until
our enemies found a jury that gave them what they wanted, and/or we were bled white
defending ourselves.
In my mind, I'm convinced that Hamilton should be argued along the broadest and
deepest lines possible. The total argument should be laid out around and towards the next
step of bringing a counter-suit for malicious prosecution after the Hamilton Case win.
Our industry cannot argue its case with 20second spots on TV. We CAN argue
our case in the courts. Hamilton is the place to introduce things like the Lott Study, and
cross-examine in detail the opposition. This is the time to put people like David Kopel on
the stand, to review all the hard verifiable evidence that firearms do not cause crime,
but save lives. This is the time to bring in the editors from the NRA, put them on the
stand about all the lives firearms have saved, and insist all that goes on the record.
This is the time to cross-examine and cross-examine. Introduce the videos of the cop car
chases you can buy at any video store today and ask, "since cars are used by
criminals, why aren't you suing Ford and General Motors?" All criminals use phones
for their criminal activities, so ask, "Why aren't you suing AT&T, MCI and
Sprint?" If our enemies object to the introduction of facts, how does that make them
look in the eyes of the jury?
This is the time to ask lots of specific questions about specific crime groups:
"Exactly how do firearms cause auto thefts?" "Exactly how do
firearms cause illegal drug use?" "Are we talking about crime and its causes, or
is this a contrived and manipulated political case that has nothing to do with making the
streets of America safer for ordinary working class people?"
Here are the three facts of life: (1) We cannot make our case on TV because none of
the left-wing TV networks would give us the time to make our points. (2) We cannot make
our case in the big news press because the big press is dominated by left-wing
authoritarians who want the working class controlled in every manner possible. (3) We
cannot make our case with the politicians, because 70% of the Democrats think that the
government owns the USA, and every person in the USA and all their property, and 50% of
the Republicans believe the same thing.
Our side has the facts. The provable facts and figures are on our side. But it's a
complicated case and the only place we'll ever be able to have the time and
cross-examination powers to pin the other side down is in the court rooms. I wish I was a
lawyer and could get the mutated Marxist/Nazis who make up the anti-freedom and
anti-Second Amendment hate groups into court to cross-examine. We have hundreds and
hundreds of pro-firearms facts we can and should bring up. Just one example, the FBI
figures for murder rates.
I'd love to get some of the authoritarian gun phobia jerks on a witness stand and
ask them how a murder rate of 80.6 per 100,000 in Washington DC, which has 100% "gun
control," while North Dakota has a murder rate of 1.1 per 100,000, and everyone there
is armed and everyone owns a firearm, how that "proves" that firearms cause
crime? How does that "prove" that "gun control" reduces murder and
crime? I'd love to get them on a stand where they couldn't run. I'd keep them there for
days and days if I could, and I'd expose them for what they really are - antifreedom
mutated Communists.
Here's my opinion: If the Hamilton case is argued and won along very narrow lines,
it will be a small tactical win, but a horrible strategic loss. All that will have done is
buy more like lawsuits until the industry is either bled dry, or our enemies find a jury
to give them what they want. If, however, we bring everything into the case, the total
facts and figures for firearms into the case, and if we counter-sue after the win for
politically motivated malicious prosecution, then even if we lose the malicious
prosecution case we would still have won a tremendous strategic victory. Anyone in the
future who brings a like case, that makes a second malicious prosecution case from our
side all the stronger. With all the facts out, you ask "didn't you review everything
connected to the Hamilton Case before you sued us?" When we countersue after the
Hamilton win, we should counter-sue and ask for $20 million in damages. Even if we lose on
the countersuit, I'd take it to the next higher court and push all the way to the Supreme
Court.
The unwanted truth: The time has come when we can run, but we can't hide. A narrow defense
and narrow win in Hamilton will, in my opinion, only buy everyone more of the same. We
have to have faith in our position, and fight it out in total. Can we win on a counter
suit? In my opinion, Hamilton really is a politically motivated malicious lawsuit. If the
truth can win cases in court, then we can win a case of malicious prosecution, because
that's what it is.
With the malicious prosecution countersuit, we naturally sue the plaintiff. But who
we really want to sue are the plaintiff's law firm(s) and their attorneys. The law firm
should be sued as a company and each individual plaintiff attorney should be sued
individually. Lawyers are supposed to be officers of the court and defenders of the
Constitution, not subverters of the Bill of Rights. All law firms carry big liability
insurance policies, so when we get a $20 million judgement against them, we will be able
to collect from their insurance company. This will give handgun manufacturers and
distributors lots of money, and it will raise insurance premiums for every left-wing law
firm in America.
I'm not a lawyer, but my strategic sense of what to do and not do for our industry
has been on the money for years. Gather all the pro-firearms evidence possible in the next
half year, AND PUT IT ALL INTO THE CASE. Introduce it all, and cross-examine the other
side in detail about it all. It's time to stop running. If we don't fight now - then when?
Bogus lawsuits a crime against gun-owning
public
by John R. Lott, Jr.
More people are killed by cars; more children drown or die in fires.
Every product has illegitimate uses and undesirable consequences. In 1996, in the United States, car accidents killed 43,000 people and injured another 3.4 million; 950 children under the age of 15 drowned in pools and while boating; 500 children died in bicycle accidents, and more than 1,000 children died from residential fires. No one is yet proposing that state or city governments should recoup medical costs or police salaries by suing automobile or bicycle companies, pool builders or makers of home heaters. Such suits make as little sense as pool builders suing the government to recoup the health benefits from exercise.
But suing manufacturers for any costs cities incur from gun injuries and deaths is exactly the theory behind the lawsuits by Chicago and New Orleans against gun-makers. Gun-control groups, which are helping organize the litigation, claim that as many as 60 cities will eventually sue. With so many simultaneous suits, the goal is not to win these weak cases in court but to bankrupt legitimate small companies through massive legal costs.
Obviously, bad things happen with guns. But the suits ignore that guns also prevent bad things by making it easier for victims to defend themselves. With fewer than 1 percent of all guns ever used in crimes or causing death or injury, many other products have much higher probabilities of causing harm. Unlike the tobacco suits, gun-makers have powerful arguments about the benefits of gun ownership.
More than 450,000 crimes, including 10,744 murders, are committed with guns each year. But Americans also use guns defensively about 2.5 million time a year, and 98 percent of the time merely brandishing the weapon is sufficient to stop an attack.
Police are important in reducing crime rates, but they virtually always arrive after a crime has been committed. When criminals confront people, resistance with a gun is by far the safest course of action. Guns help offset the strength differential between male criminals and female victims. The chance of serious injury from an attack are 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for those resisting with guns.
My own research has found that increased gun ownership rates are associated with lower crime rates. Poor people in the highest crime areas benefit the most from owning guns. Lawsuits against gun-makers will raise the price of firearms, which will most severely reduce gun ownership among the law-abiding, much-victimized poor.
A 1996 survey by the National Association of Chiefs of Police found that 93 percent of 15,000 chiefs and sheriffs questioned thought that law-abiding citizens should be able to buy guns for self-defense. If mayors really believe that guns produce no benefits, there is one simple way they can demonstrate this: Disarm their bodyguards. It is hypocritical for mayors to demand that poor people live in high crime areas without being able to own guns, while the mayors would never enter these areas without armed guards.
Chicago claims that the gun-makers made their weapons attractive to gang members through low price, easy conceivability, corrosion resistance, accurate firing and high firepower. Lightweight, concealable guns may help criminals, but they also have helped protect law-abiding citizens and lower crime rates in the 43 states that allow concealed handguns. Women benefit most and also find it easier to use smaller, lightweight guns.
The New Orleans suit seeks to hold gun-makers liable because accidental deaths are "foreseeable" and not enough was done to make guns safe. It is particularly concerned with accidental deaths involving children and cites three cases in New Orleans since 1992. Nationally, 30 children under 5 and 200 under 15 dies from accidental gun deaths in 1996. Yet with 80 million people owning 200 million to 240 million guns, accidental deaths from guns are far less "foreseeable" than from many other products. Most gun owners must be very responsible, or such gun accidents would be much more frequent.
Allowing the court system to ignore a product's benefits to society
is bad enough. Yet even worse is the cynical attempt to file bogus lawsuits and use
taxpayers' dollars to impose massive legal costs that render it infeasible for defendants
to defend themselves.
Jury finds gun makers liable in shootings
NEW YORK (AP) - A federal jury Thursday found several gun makers responsible in three area shootings for letting guns fall into the hands of criminals. Other manufacturers were cleared.
The only damages awarded were $560,000 to the sole survivor of the shootings, who was seriously wounded.
Steven Fox, 19, and the relatives of six homicide victims sued the gun industry in federal court in 1995. The class-action lawsuit sought unspecified damages from an industry that generates sales of $2 billion to $3 billion a year.
Like some of the lawsuits brought against Big Tobacco, this one accused the gun industry of negligently marketing a legal product. The case also was closely watched by several cities trying to recover the costs of gun violence.
During the monthlong trial, they argued handgun makers oversupply gun-friendly markets, mainly in the South, aware that the excess guns flow into criminal hands via illegal markets in New York and other states with stricter anti-gun laws.
The plaintiffs' lawyers accused the 25 defendants of dumping handguns onto the black market like ''toxic waste,'' making no effort to identify and discipline dishonest distributors. In a deposition read to the jury, Robert Morris, head of Tauras International Manufacturing, conceded the company had ''never cut off anybody, cut them off for sloppy distribution practices.''
Lawyers for Tauras, Smith & Wesson, Colt's Manufacturing, Sturm, Ruger and Co., and other defendants insisted their responsibility ends once they sell to licensed distributors. They said the job of policing traffickers should be left to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which has never required gun makers to track their products to the street.
Industry attorney James Dorr told the jury it was unfair to ''hold the manufactures of a lawful, legitimately sold product responsible for acts of outlaws who are totally outside their control. ... The case is simply wrong.''
The gun makers also asserted that in most of the shootings the plaintiffs never presented evidence conclusively linking the weapons used to harm their relatives to specific defendants. The plaintiffs countered that the ''chain of title'' is irrelevant, instead accusing the entire industry of creating a widespread risk with negligent marketing - a concept known as collective liability.
''This huge pool (of handguns) is like toxic waste,'' the plaintiffs' lead attorney, Elisa Barnes, said in closing arguments.
Relatives for the victims testified, and attorneys presented statistics on weapons sales, the average age of guns used in crimes, and other aspects of the gun trade.
A key plaintiff witness, former Smith & Wesson executive Robert Hass, was too ill to appear but testified by deposition that gun makers took a see-no-evil approach to criminal use of their deadly products. And an economist testified that 90% of the handguns used in crimes in New York City in recent years came from southern states.
Testifying for the firearms industry, Chicago-based economics consultant Gustavo ''Chip'' Bamberger said plaintiffs' arguments about oversupply of guns relied on insufficient data and flawed statistics.
The verdict came despite apparent disagreement in the jury room.
In recent days, jurors had sent U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein several notes saying it was deadlocked over whether negligent marketing by the defendants was a factor in seven shootings in the New York City area in 1993-94 - a claim that was considered a test case for similar anti-gun suits filed by large cities.
One note said that 10 jurors had ''decided to work together to reach a verdict,'' but the 11th ''refused because he or she feels the verdict 'will open the floodgate of lawsuits across the country.'''
Legal experts have said that it could set a precedent for cities trying to recoup the costs of battling gun violence.
Chicago, New Orleans, Bridgeport, Conn., and Miami-Dade County are suing the industry. Pro-gun groups have responded by lobbying state legislatures to pass laws prohibiting such suits.
©COPYRIGHT 1999 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Feds to add cities to gun tracing program
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration wants to bring more cities under a program that traces guns used by young criminals in light of a report that showed at least half the guns were bought illegally from licensed dealers.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms released an analysis Sunday of its Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative. The program traced guns used in 76,260 crimes in 27 cities over the past three years.
President Clinton is asking Congress in his new budget proposal for money to pay for expanding the initiative to 10 more cities across the country.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found 51% of the traced guns were purchased from licensed dealers by people acting as ''straw'' intermediaries for the real owners, and only 35% were stolen. The remainder came from private sellers not required to obtain identification or subject their customers to background checks.
In a statement, Clinton said the figures go a long way toward helping authorities find and punish those responsible for putting guns in the hands of the young.
''With more police on the streets and tougher gun laws on the books, crime has dropped to its lowest level in a generation. But we must do more,'' Clinton said. ''Tracing crime guns to their source, and putting gun traffickers out of business for good, will make our streets even safer.''
That 25% of the guns moved quickly from sale to recovery by police indicates they were bought legally, then resold, Treasury officials said. Semiautomatic pistols were the most commonly recovered weapon in each city, making up 52% of all trace requests.
As a result of the traces, 397 people have been referred to state and federal courts over the past year for prosecution as gun traffickers, the report said.
''We can't stop them from buying the guns, but as soon as they turn those guns over to felons, we can prosecute that,'' said ATF director John Magaw.
The report identified five types of semiautomatic pistols that move rapidly from dealers to young offenders: the Lorcin 9 mm, the .40-caliber Smith & Wesson, the Bryco 9 mm, the Hi-Point 9 mm and the .40-caliber Glock.
It said 11.3% of the offenders involved were under 17 years old, and 32% were between 18 and 24. Thirty-one percent of the guns were used in drug offenses and 28% in assaults, 18% each in homicides and robberies.
In eight cities, investigators reported that serial numbers had been obliterated on an average of 11.4% of the guns they traced, attempts to throw off tracers.
The report was the result of Clinton's 1996 directive for the Departments of Treasury and Justice to establish a program to identify and reduce illegal firearms supplies to juveniles.
The 27 cities in the report are Atlanta; Baltimore; Birmingham, Ala.; Boston; Bridgeport, Conn.; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Detroit; Gary, Ind.; Houston; Inglewood, Calif.; Jersey City, N.J.; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; New York; Philadelphia; Richmond, Va.; Salinas, Calif.; San Antonio; St. Louis; Seattle; Tucson, Ariz.; and Washington.
Clinton's budget request for fiscal 2000 includes an additional $11.2 million to expand the tracing program to 10 additional cities: Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas; Denver; Louisville, Ky.; New Orleans; Oakland, Calif.; Omaha, Neb.; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; and Tampa, Fla.
Folks, the attorneys in general and the lackeys at Handgun Control
Inc.specifically, will not stop until you have no rights to own, purchase, or possess
firearms, much less the right to shoot or hunt. Pardon me if I can't
understand why they aren't suing car manufacturers or toaster makers under this same
bullshit ruse. This is what happens when the country turns out more useless
attorneys than some profession who serves a purpose, such as an engineer.
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As time permits, and other idiocies or support come to light, they will be added to
this rogues gallery of the government run amok.
Please submit all questions and comments to tberwick@sbcglobal.net
Page Last Revised: October 05, 2005