BY Herschel Smith
10 years, 7 months ago
Literally, if they have their way.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the widow of a slain Plymouth Township police officer filed a lawsuit Monday against the West Norriton gun store that sold guns to a straw purchaser.
The suit alleges gross negligence by In Site Firearms for selling six guns in a three-month period to a man they should have identified as a straw purchaser. One of those guns was used to kill Officer Brad Fox in September 2012.
According to the suit, In Site ignored several red flags about Michael Henry, including that he was a drug addict who had already purchased several of the same type of gun. Henry always paid in cash and transferred the guns to Andrew Thomas, a convicted felon barred from having firearms, in the gun store’s parking lot, according to the suit.
As if the gun store owner has omniscience. This is part of a larger strategy with Bloomberg’s money.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, joined by community leaders, Friday launched a national initiative utilizing protests, petitions, a code of conduct and lawsuits to “Stop Bad Apple Gun Dealers” that turn a blind eye to gun traffickers, straw purchasers and criminals, and flood our nation’s streets with guns used in crimes. An astonishing 60 percent of crime guns come from just one percent of gun dealers.
“These ‘bad apple’ gun dealers choose profits over people and are largely responsible for America’s gun violence problem,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “We are working to mobilize communities directly impacted every day by the guns these bad apple dealers put on their streets to demand change. We are all fed up with the violence in our communities and this is something that we can all do to make a real difference – to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and to keep our children safe.”
The campaign kicked-off outside Chuck’s Gun Shop & Pistol Range in Riverdale, Illinois, which has been the source of thousands of guns recovered in crimes in Chicago. Chuck’s alone accounts for eight percent of the total number of guns that were recovered and traced to crimes in Chicago in the last five years.
I suspect that this strategy will succeed in certain locations where the judges are progressive and the juries stupid, but will fail overall in the Southern and Midwestern states.
Some gun shops may be shut down, but in the end it will be a tremendous waste of money and legal time. What some readers can learn from this is that while you cannot control the judges – most of the time – you need to be aware of the makeup of juries.
If a “jury of your peers” is the kind that would hold a gun dealer accountable for omniscience, you might want to consider moving elsewhere, just like the gun manufacturers have.
More at War on Guns.