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Court Won't Hear Gun Industry's Appeal           By HOPE YEN Associated Press Writer January 10, 2005, 10:20 AM EST WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider dismissing a lawsuit seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the 1999 shooting of a letter carrier by a white supremacist. Without comment, justices let stand a ruling of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors. The companies' weapons were used by Buford Furrow to kill Filipino-American Joseph Ileto and wound five people at a Jewish day care center in a Los Angeles-area rampage. The high court's move, which allows the lawsuit to proceed toward trial, is good news for gun-control groups who say increased liability will stop industry sales tactics that put weapons into the hands of criminals. Several cities nationwide have sought to sue gun manufacturers, but with little success. Ileto's mother, Lillian, and families of the survivors contend that Georgia-based Glock Inc., China North Industries Corp., RSR Management Corp. and RSR Wholesale Guns Seattle Inc., should be held liable under California law because they knowingly facilitated and participated in an underground illegal gun market, according to the complaint. A federal judge initially threw out the case, but a divided 9th Circuit panel reinstated the lawsuit in 2003. The panel said a since-repealed California statute immunizing gun manufacturers in product liability actions did not apply, because it did not address the plaintiffs' theories of negligent marketing and distribution. The full 26-member 9th Circuit declined to rehear the case last May. Christopher Renzulli, the attorney for Glock and the RSR companies, has said the gun Furrow used to kill Ileto was originally sold to the police department in Cosmopolis, Wash., by the RSR companies. According to court records, the police department sold the weapon to a gun shop in exchange for a different model. The shop sold it to a gun collector who is alleged to have sold it to Furrow, an ex-convict prohibited from purchasing weapons, at a gun show in Spokane, Wash. The appeal filed by China North Industries Corp. argued that the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit overstepped its authority in expanding potential liability for gun manufacturers, a role the company says should be reserved for legislatures. In the original decision reinstating the case, Judge Richard Paez of the 9th Circuit wrote that Glock's marketing strategy creates a "supply of post-police guns that can be sold through unlicensed dealers without background checks to illegal buyers." In urging their colleagues to rehear the case, dissenting Judge Consuelo Callahan wrote that courts should "be chary of adopting broad new theories of liability." Congressional legislation barring lawsuits targeting the industry failed last spring. The case is China North Industries Corp. v. Ileto, 04-423.

dupe?

And some people want the Supreme Court to decide whether or not the Second Amendment is an individual right.

this is just too stupid, our liberal checks-and-balances at work.

China North Industries Corp. = NORINCO?  

This is a shame, because the 9th Circuit is widely considered to be the most liberal of all the circuits.  They are also the circuit that gets overturned the most--but unfortunately, not in this case

This only lets the case proceed, where the gun industry can win on the merits.
But lawsuit protection would be kinda nice...

Kharn

Quoted: And some people want the Supreme Court to decide whether or not the Second Amendment is an individual right.

You mean again?  I thought they already ruled on that in the 1960s, deciding that the 2nd Amendmant to the Bill of Rights of the People in fact only applied to the government.

Quoted: This only lets the case proceed, where the gun industry can win on the merits. But lawsuit protection would be kinda nice... Kharn

You underestimate the importance of this case.  Now every case like this gets to a jury and the jury can award millions in damages.  Every gun manufacturer (hell every type of manufacturer) now has to factor that into its decisions whether to sell its product.  I agree a jury should bounce the Plaintiffs on their ass but the judges should never let it get to a jury because there is no legal basis for the claim.  

Quoted: Quoted: And some people want the Supreme Court to decide whether or not the Second Amendment is an individual right. You mean again?  I thought they already ruled on that in the 1960s, deciding that the 2nd Amendmant to the Bill of Rights of the People in fact only applied to the government.

United States v. Miller was decided in 1939, not the 1960s. It does not quite say what you are posting here. In Miller, the Court held that only those weapons which were used by the military and state miltias were protected. It did not hold that the Second applied to the gov't. Under a strict interpretation of Miller, the government would not be able to restrict the ownership of any military-style weapon by the general population. That would work (even though I believe Miller to be wrongly decided).

The case denied cert here has virtually nothing to do with the Second. I don't know wht people try to conflate the two. I wish the SCOTUS would have taken this case, but I am not overly upset that they did not.

According to court records, the police department sold the weapon to a gun shop in exchange for a different model. The shop sold it to a gun collector who is alleged to have sold it to Furrow, an ex-convict prohibited from purchasing weapons, at a gun show in Spokane, Wash.

Oh, no... get ready to hear about "the gun show loophole" again.  I wonder how in the world they can include the original vendor, who sold it to a police department, in the lawsuit.

1911fan