"Milwaukee officers' lawsuit could set gun law precedent" - CBS News article

[OneGrassRoot]

Last edited Tue Oct 13, 2015, 10:43 AM - Edit history (1)

Interesting...

10/6/15 -- A trial that could set a gun law precedent resumes Tuesday in Milwaukee, where two police officers shot in the line of duty are suing the owners of a gun store. They claim the owners were negligent in selling the weapon used in the shooting.

The question is whether a store that sells a gun used in a crime can be held liable in a civil case for the harm inflicted on the victims -- in this case, the two officers who were shot in the face, reports CBS News' Adriana Diaz.

<snip>

In their lawsuit, the officers claim the weapon Burton used was "negligently and unlawfully sold by Badger Guns."

According to the charging document, in 2005, 537 guns recovered from crimes were traced back to Badger Guns, which "ranked as the number one crime gun dealer in America."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/milwaukee-police-officers-sue-badger-guns-store-owners-negligence/

[clydefrand]

1. Well, lets say I am

driving down the street in my new car and I see a group I don't like, so I run the car into the group killing several.
Can they sue the car manufacture because I used the car as a weapon?
NO, THEY CAN'T. THEN WHY SHOULD WE BE ABLE TO SUE THE GUN MANUFACTURER OR THE STORE THAT SOLD IT?

[Ilsa]

2. If the dealer sold the car to a rich fourteen year old,

then yes, maybe they have some degree of liability.

Burton was 18 years old at the time. The legal age to buy a gun in Wisconsin was 21. He allegedly paid a friend to buy the weapon for him. The officers claim the gun store knew the purchase was illegal and conspired with the friend "to change his answer [on a form] to claim falsely that he was the actual buyer of the gun."

If this is factual, then I suspect making money off the sale of the gun was more important to the owners than keeping weapons out of the hands of persons who should not have guns.

[OneGrassRoot]

3. ^^^ This...

I was just going to post the same thing, that dealerships are required to see a test driver's or buyer's driver's license.

[Duckhunter935]

5. sue the dealer

not the manufacturer that sold to the federally cleared FFL. The dealer seems to be at fault for allowing a straw purchase. The manufacturer was not involved in the sale.

[OneGrassRoot]

6. Right. This case has nothing to do with suing manufacturers...

it's focused on the liability of the gun store/dealer. Not sure why clydefrand brought manufacturers into the discussion here.

[Duckhunter935]

12. I do not understand myself

The dealer is the problem. The manufacturer sold to a federally licensed dealer. They did no wrong.

[stone space]

20. Why don't auto manufacturers sell cars with bayonets attached to the front bumper...

...to make such attacks more effective?

Well, lets say I am driving down the street in my new car and I see a group I don't like, so I run the car into the group killing several.
Can they sue the car manufacture because I used the car as a weapon?

I'm sure that such models would have great appeal to a certain class of buyers, as they could be made to look quite fearsome. (I mean, they could offer man cards to the buyers.)

Are they afraid of being sued or something?

There's real money to be made with this idea.

Isn't Capitalism beautiful?

[HereSince1628]

4. Black man stopped for riding bicycle, while being beaten by two cops, pulled gun and shot them

Last edited Tue Oct 13, 2015, 09:26 AM - Edit history (1)

there is something of a precedent to be made here, but I don't think it is about gun shops.

[kiva]

7. Could you link me to a story about that?

I found this, but it was written shortly after the shooting so might not have details:

Psychiatric evaluation ordered for man charged with shooting police

Burton, 18, later told detectives he became scared of the officers and fired over his shoulder at them while riding his bicycle Tuesday along S. 2nd St., according to a criminal complaint.

But a video shows Burton was on foot and fired directly at officers Graham M. Kunisch and Bryan J. Norberg, leaving them screaming in pain and bleeding profusely on the sidewalk, the complaint says. Neither officer had even drawn his weapon.

-clip-

A relative said Thursday that Burton left school in eighth grade, seemed constantly fearful of people he said were after him over a previous dispute and was on prescription medications for psychiatric problems that included hearing voices.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/47859617.html

[HereSince1628]

8. I found it on WISpolitics, I think on Sunday

The article was about the potential precedent of suing a sellor, but included a summary of the case which mentioned the altercation that accompanied stopping the bike-rider.

Couldn't find it quickly but here is an allusion to it from USNews, which mentions being stopped for bike riding but doesn't mention the rest

http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/10/12/attorneys-make-closing-cases-in-trial-of-wisconsin-gun-shop

[HereSince1628]

9. Milwaukee tv station refers to it as 'confrontation' on sidewalk

http://www.wisn.com/news/jury-deliberations-continue-tuesday-in-case-against-badger-guns/35804294

[HereSince1628]

10. This reference in Journal Sentinel article

They saw Burton riding a bike on W. National Ave. and stopped him for an ordinance violation. As they approached, Burton struggled. Kunisch radioed for help and Burton pulled a gun and fired. After the shooting, Burton fled and was arrested in a nearby house, where police found the gun.

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/firearms-expert-says-badger-guns-acted-irresponsibly-b99590583z1-330728651.html

[kiva]

11. Thanks.

I was surprised that the relative's reference to a drug-treated mental disorder hadn't shown up in more recent stories and thought maybe the investigation had taken a different turn. I'll have to do some more looking when I get back home later today.

[Lurks Often]

13. The author of the article is incorrect, the case is unlikely to set a legal precedent

Here is the applicable law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/chapter-105; under 7903 "Definitions"

If the lawyers can prove that Badger Guns knowingly sold the gun to a straw buyer or was in some other way negligent or broke the law in the sale of this firearm, then they can indeed be sued.

And if the lawyers can prove negligence, then Badger Guns should lose it's FFL and be fined for all actual damages suffered by the officers as well as large punitive fines.

Why didn't the ATF and state law enforcement do more to investigate how those 537 guns cited in the article ended up in the hands of criminals?

[OneGrassRoot]

15. "How the NRA Hobbled the ATF"

I have a conservative ATF friend who I asked to read this article and share his thoughts. I assumed he would dispute it because it was a Mother Jones piece. On the contrary, he said that in his experience this was spot on.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/atf-gun-laws-nra

Conspicuously absent from the president's agenda, however, is much of anything that might address the stunning and widespread weaknesses that have for years crippled the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation's gun laws—the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Yes, the president announced his nomination of a full-time director for the long-leaderless agency, and some of the new proposals do tacitly acknowledge a number of ATF's long-standing challenges. But the initiatives are modest, and Congress may not go along with any of them. So for now, the bureau remains systematically hobbled by purposeful restrictions, flimsy laws, impotent leadership and paltry budgets. And it's not at all clear there's anything on the horizon that would change that situation.

"If you want an agency to be small and ineffective at what it does, the ATF is really the model," says Robert J. Spitzer, author of The Politics of Gun Control. Spitzer, a political science professor at the State University of New York College at Cortland, says the ATF's critics, in particular the National Rifle Association (NRA), have been "extremely successful at demonizing, belittling and hemming in the ATF as a government regulatory agency." The result, he says, is an agency with insufficient staff and resources, whose agents are "hamstrung" by laws and rules that make it difficult or impossible to fulfill their mission.

[Lurks Often]

16. Perhaps, but really how hard is it to build a case against a straw buyer?

ATF knows who bought the gun, courtesy of the Form 4473 filled out at the time of sale and they usually know who committed the crime with that same gun. Those cases should be easy to prosecute.

Based on the following link: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a27632/atf-milwaukee-sting-failure-022714/

The ATF seems to staffed with agents more interested in trying flashy, career enhancing stings then doing routine law enforcement work.

[OneGrassRoot]

17. That may be true as well.

Bottom line, imho, whether we're talking about crime/violence/guns/drugs, or we're talking about education, healthcare or any other institution or systems, including politics, our values as a society are now FUBAR.

$$$ and power rule to the point we don't even recognize the insidious daily influence all around any longer.

[Lurks Often]

18. Add the media being more interested in ratings & money, then honest reporting

And yes, that applies to media on both the left and right.

[OneGrassRoot]

19. Absolutely. Pretty much all of our institutions, imho. n/t

[X_Digger]

14. Um.. no, no 'precedent' here.

Suing a gun store for an illegal sale has been done before and is one of the exclusions in the PLCAA.

Click-bait-y headline.