Vin Suprynowicz
Victim disarmament traitors at it again
Sun Apr 11, 2004 13:58
63.228.145.202

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ:
Victim disarmament traitors at it again
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Feb-29-Sun-2004/opinion/23315305.html

Sure enough, the traitors to the Constitution who currently occupy so much of the U.S. Senate now threaten to turn S.1805 -- a simple Senate bill designed to ban frivolous lawsuits intended to bankrupt firearms manufacturers -- into a Victim Disarmament Trojan Horse.

Since October 1998, 33 cities and the state of New York have brought lawsuits against gun makers and retailers seeking to hold the companies responsible for the misuse of their legal products. These suits have been substantially funded by George Soros and the Brady Campaign (formerly Handgun Control).

"The goal has not been to win these legally weak cases but rather, with so many simultaneous suits, to bankrupt these companies through massive legal costs," write Grover Nordquist and John Lott Jr., the latter a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime," reporting last week for Fox News.

"Unfortunately, despite most of the city suits having been knocked out on pretrial motions, this strategy has had some success," Nordquist and Lott write. "Litigation fears helped discourage venerable companies such as Colt from continuing to produce handguns, and K-mart, along with other retailers, have stopped selling handgun ammunition."

And so the Senate appeared poised to pass legislation to rein in many of those lawsuits. (The proposed legislation would, of course, not end lawsuits against defective products that cause harm or injury.)

A recent Roper poll found 78 percent of Americans opposed holding "companies that make guns ... financially liable if judges or juries find that their products were used to commit a crime." With such grass-roots support, 10 Democratic senators from Southern and Western states joined 45 Republican senators in sponsoring the current legislation.

"But can such senators as Tom Daschle and Harry Reid -- who face re-election this year -- really convince voters that they want to stop these lawsuits while, at the same time, they vote for additional gun control amendments that jeopardize the final passage of the bill?" Lott and Nordquist ask.

What happened is that late Wednesday evening, bill sponsor Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho (a board member of America's largest gun control organization, the National Rifle Association) "worked with rabid anti-gunner Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., to come up with a 'Unanimous Consent Agreement' which allows a large number of gun control amendments to be offered to S.1805," Pennsylvania's Keystone Firearms Coalition warned its members in a Thursday e-mail alert.

"By pushing this bill to be heard on the floor, and agreeing to hear a large number of gun control amendments, Sen. Craig has opened up Pandora's Box of Gun Control," the Pennsylvania gun-rights group warns its members.

"As this alert is being written, the Senate just passed an amendment (by 70-27) to require trigger locks" (Nevada's John Ensign voted "Nay," Harry Reid liked turning this over to the Product Safety Commission just fine) "and is moving toward more gun control. (This) far outweighs any good S.1805's original language would do. And as this is being written, Sen. Teddy Kennedy is offering an amendment to ban `cop-killer bullets.' "

(Since cops would still be allowed to use the Teflon-coated slugs, shouldn't we start calling them "Citizen-Killer Bullets"?)

Among the other incremental victim disarmament measures Sen. Craig has agreed to consider, the Pennsylvanians warn, are new federal gun lock rules from Sen. Barbara Boxer; a "cop-only nationwide carry" measure sponsored by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell; Sen. Barbara Mikulski's proposal that people shot with "sniper rifles" (hunting rifles with telescopic scopes) be allowed to sue gun shops and manufacturers; a gun-show ban proposed by Sens. McCain and Reed, and an extension of the sunsetting "assault weapons" ban (which really bans only certain semi-automatic rifles and adequate magazines) proposed by Sen. Feinstein.

"Ms. Feinstein's `assault weapons ban' arbitrarily outlaws some guns based upon brand name or cosmetic features -- such as whether a rifle could have a bayonet mount, a pistol grip, a folding stock or a threaded muzzle," the scholars report. "Not only could someone buy another not-banned semi-automatic gun that fired the same bullets, at the same rapidity and with the same damage, but even the banned guns can be sold under a different name or after, say, the bayonet mount was removed."

Banning gun shows is really aimed at making self-defense weapons unavailable to the working class. "Despite the term `gun show loophole,' " Messrs. Lott and Nordquist report, "there are no special exemptions for buying a gun at a gun show. Dealers must perform the same background checks as in a store. What gun control groups refer to is the non-regulated private transfers of guns. ... However, just as with the semi-automatic gun bans, there is not a single academic study showing that (such) regulations reduce any type of violent crime."

But rape enablers hate gun shows, because they remind people that the ownership of self-defense firearms by everyday Americans is legal, admirable and wise.

What's the greatest irony of Republican cooperation with subterfuges like this scurrilous sabotage of the "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act"? The Associated Press reported that George Bush won the 2000 presidential election in large measure because gun owners voted so strongly against gun-control advocate Al Gore, throwing close states including West Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas into the Republican column. (Mr. Gore would be president today if he had carried even one of those states.)

Gun owners don't have to vote Democratic to throw George W. Bush out of the White House. All they have to do come election day is throw up their hands in disgust at this kind of two-faced Republican treachery, and stay home.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Ballad of Carl Drega." His Web site is www.privacyalert.us.

Vin Suprynowicz, a nationally syndicated Libertarian columnist and author, explores questions on constitutional freedoms in his Sunday column.
Columns in 2004
http://www.reviewjournal.com/columnists/suprynowicz.html

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• Some dare... — Laura Kirmse, Mon Apr 12 00:58
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• NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON — HOWARD W. FLEMING, Mon Apr 12 23:49
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• I HAD A BAD DAYDREAM & NIGHTMARE — Thomas, seeker of Truth, Justice & Rigthousness, Mon Apr 12 22:23
• Re:Topic — :::::::::, Mon Apr 12 20:25
• Your post — Dwight Thomas Powers, Mon Apr 12 15:58
• Some Dare...omission by design — Renfro, Mon Apr 12 15:25
• Treason — L.G., Mon Apr 12 14:45
• Of course its treason — anon, Mon Apr 12 14:03
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• 9-11 Was an Inside Job — True Patriot, Mon Apr 12 13:23
• Re: Some Dare Call It Treason-Wake Up America! — Anonymous, Mon Apr 12 12:30
• Re:Some Dare — Paul Revere, Mon Apr 12 12:26
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• Treason — Joseph Smith, Mon Apr 12 10:52
• WE ARE IN GRAVE DANGER. — William R, Craft, Sun Apr 11 16:58