Court Gives Indian City Go Ahead to sue Gun Makers
October 31, 2007
Court Gives Indiana City Go Ahead to Sue Gun Makers
By Monisha BansalCNSNews.com
Staff Writer
October 31, 2007(CNSNews.com) – The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the city of Gary, Ind., could sue gun manufacturers, though federal law currently prohibits such lawsuits. Gun control advocates are hailing the ruling as a victory, but gun rights groups said the federal law will be upheld.The case originated in 1999 with a sting conducted by Gary police of northern Indiana gun dealers.
According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a liberal gun control organization, the gun dealers supplied more than 60 percent of the crime guns recovered in the city.Gary also sued the major gun makers who sold handguns through these dealerships, claiming they knowingly profited from the diversion of guns to criminals.Brian Siebel, a senior attorney with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and co-counsel representing the City of Gary, told Cybercast News Service that the lawsuit comes under an exception to the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, because it does not shield gun manufacturers from liability for sales practices that knowingly violate Indiana’s public nuisance statute.
Trial is set to begin in 2009 against the 16 gun manufacturers and six northern Indiana gun dealers.”The citizens of Gary may finally have their day in court and help put an end to the unlawful practices of gun makers that funnel guns into the criminal market,” Siebel said.But Ashley Varner, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, said, “Criminals are a public nuisance, not law-abiding firearm manufacturers.”"The gun industry is not responsible for violence by criminals,” she told Cybercast News Service. “They are trying to blame the firearms industry … for criminal activity, which is ridiculous.”"This ruling is an important victory for the people of Gary and the rest of Indiana who have suffered from the distribution of guns to criminals and gun traffickers because of the practices of the gun industry,” added Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center, in a statement. “When the gun industry injures the public, it should be held accountable.”David Workman, senior editor of Gun Week, said: “The gun industry isn’t hurting the public and they know it.
This is just another effort by the Brady Campaign to demonize firearms manufacturers and retailers who sell firearms and people who own firearms.”"The real problem – that we all would like to solve – is the criminal misuse of firearms,” he told Cybercast News Service. “The gun industry is a legal, highly regulated industry and they’re not responsible for the acts of people who misuse firearms.”"Gary’s frivolous lawsuit is the poster child for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association of the firearms industry.”It is like blaming car makers for drunk-driving accidents,” he said in a statement.
Varner said she believed the “law would prevail,” and that the act is “now the law of the land, and that means that law-abiding manufacturers and retailers cannot be held responsible for the actions of criminals.”"It’s a very clear cut law, and we expect that some activist judges are going to try to challenge it,” she said. “It’s because of politically motivated lawsuits that Congress had to pass this bill in the first place.”But Siebel noted that this was not a case of activism. He said the 3-0 decision Monday came from a conservative state and a court that has not been known for judicial activism.Varner added that cities should be tough on prosecuting crimes, instead of suing the gun industry.
“Our country has some big city mayors who don’t want to take responsibility for the crime in their cities,” she said. “They would rather point their fingers of blame at firearm manufacturers. They don’t want to crack down on criminal activity.”
Make media inquiries or request an interview about this article.Subscribe to the free CNSNews.com daily E-Brief.E-mail a comment or news tip to Monisha Bansal
Funding the Enemy
October 31, 2007
Funding an Enemy
By Janet Levy
FrontPageMagazine.com
Last Friday, President Bush certified Saudi Arabia as a cooperative
Levey voiced frustration that not a single terrorist supporter
“If I could snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country,
Levey leads an office which marshals the Treasury Department’s policy,
Instead, we are providing U.S. aid to the world’s top oil-producing
The extent of Saudia Arabia’s wealth frequently makes headlines.
In recent years, Talal has used his financial clout to influence
Prince Talal gave $500,000 to the Council on American Islamic Relations
During the 2005 Muslim riots in France, Prince Talal, the fifth largest
Further, Prince Talal has tried to influence U.S. Middle East policy by
Of grave concern is another donation by the Prince to the Saudi
The travesty of U.S. funding for a wealthy terrorist-sponsoring nation
It is indeed troubling that U.S. leaders overlook the role that the
anti-terrorism ally and released U.S. financial aid to Riyadh. This
occurred despite charges leveled against the “Kingdom” by Stuart Levey,
the U.S. Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, who one
day after the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks, declared that Saudi Arabia had failed to prosecute terrorism
financiers.
identified by Washington had been prosecuted by the Saudis.
it would be Saudi Arabia,” a frustrated Levey told the press. “When the
evidence is clear that these individuals have funded terror organizations
. . . then that should be prosecuted and treated as real terrorism because
it is.”
enforcement, regulatory and intelligence functions to sever the lines of
financial support to international terrorists, weapons of mass destruction
proliferators, narcotics traffickers, and other threats to our national
security. Yet, the United States blithely ignored the very person with the
best information whose job is to help stop terrorism and safeguard our
country.
country which is also coincidentally the main financial and ideological
sponsor of Wahhabism or Islamic extremism. This austere form of Islam
insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran and spreads the belief
that all those who don’t practice their form of Islam are heathens and
enemies. In effect, we are funding our enemies. Even more outrageous, we
are funding wealthy enemies: a resource-rich country that is the largest
source of financing for Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists who have murdered
hundreds of Americans and Israelis.
Recently, Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, a member of the Saudi royal family,
sold a 5% share of the Kingdom Holding Company, one of the largest
investment companies in the world, for more than two and a half times its
initial public offering valuation. As a member of the Saudi royal family,
Al-Walid holds assets estimated at $20.3 billion and is deemed by Forbes
Magazine as the 13th wealthiest person in the world. The prince’s major
holdings include Citibank, AOL, Apple, Inc., Worldcom, Motorola, News
Corp, Planet Hollywood, and numerous other companies. He alone is the
largest foreign investor in New York and his extensive real estate
holdings including upscale hotel chains and resorts. In July of 2005,
Talal donated $20 million to the Louvre in Paris, the largest donation
ever received by the museum, for the construction of a wing to house
Islamic art.
American foreign policy, shape media portrayals and promote Islamist
ideology. Following the 9/11 attacks, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were
Saudi nationals, Al-Walid offered a $10 million donation to New York City
toward relief efforts and suggested that the U.S. should reexamine its
allegedly pro-Israel policies in the Middle East as the root cause of the
attacks. The donation was turned down.
(CAIR), an un-indicted
co-conspirator in the funding of Hamas, for distribution to American
public libraries of books that sanitize Islam and terrorist organization
activities. One book declares that terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah
were placed on the U.S. government’s terrorist list, not because of their
well-documented terrorist operations, but because of the pro-Israel bias
of American leaders.
shareholder of the parent company of Fox News, called network chief Rupert
Murdoch and demanded that a screen banner identifying the unrest as
“Muslim riots” be changed to “civil riots.” The Prince maintained that the
U.S. media is too pro-Israel and he encouraged the Arab world and media to
do more to counter this tendency.
donating $20 million each to Harvard University and Georgetown University,
among the largest university donations in history, to finance Islamic
studies and create a pro-Islamic environment among future and current
policy leaders. From a country that ironically routinely punishes
practitioners of Christianity, he declared that his primary reason for
bestowing the gifts was the promotion of “Muslim-Christian”
understanding.
Committee for the Support of the al-Quds Intifada for $27 million given in
2002. Although committee leadership attempted to portray the gift as
assistance for Arab-Palestinian families resisting the “occupation,”
documents captured by the Israel Defense Forces indicated that the funds
were payoffs for suicide bombings used as enticements to murder by Hamas.
A Saudi-government cleric, Sheikh Saad al-Buraik, stated to television
audiences viewing the 2002 fundraising telethon, “I am against America
until this life ends…She is the root of all evils and wickedness on
Earth…” He further urged listeners to pillage the Jews, enslave their
women and wage all-out jihad.
is further demonstrated by a 2005 study, “Saudi Publications on Hate
Ideology Invade American Mosques” by Freedom House, a non-profit,
nonpartisan organization that seeks to advance the worldwide expansion of
political and economic freedom. Freedom House researchers found that over
80% of U.S. mosques had been radicalized by Saudi-appointed, Wahhabist
imams and ideology. These Saudi-trained clerics, the ideological arm of
the royal family, advocate the rejection of Christianity and Judaism, the
full application of the Sharia or Islamic law in America, hatred of
non-believers, renunciation of allegiance to America and the waging of
jihad by all Muslims against infidels.
Saudi government plays in supporting terrorism worldwide and the spreading
of extremist ideology within America. It is the height of irony that while
Saudia Arabia bans churches and arrests Christians praying in private
homes, it is also freely funding a fifth column inside America in the form
of “religious” instruction. For President Bush to praise Saudi Arabia as
an “anti-terrorism” ally while Saudi-funded efforts within our borders are
undermining and threatening our very existence as a free nation, nullifies
American counter-terrorism measures and ignores the warnings of those
charged with protecting us. Such a decision dangerously ignores reality
and courts our own destruction.
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