SAF Says Michigan Appeals Court Ruling on Gun Lawsuit Was Correct

8/8/2003

From: Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation, 425-454-7012; Web: http://www.saf.org

BELLEVUE, Wash., Aug. 8 -- The unanimous decision by the Michigan Court of Appeals to dismiss a pair of lawsuits against gun makers by Detroit and Wayne County was another blow to anti-gun politicians who would waste public money to push their personal agendas, said the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).

The three-judge Appeals Court panel ruled that legislation passed in 2000 prevented such lawsuits. This is the latest defeat for anti-gun politicians around the country who filed more than 30 lawsuits in the late 1990s, with the support of gun control extremists at Handgun Control, Inc., now known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The Michigan ruling addresses two separate cases that were consolidated.

"We hope this ruling marks the end of another sad chapter in a pitiful national saga that has pitted gun control extremists against a legal and highly-regulated industry," said SAF Founder Alan M. Gottlieb.

The lawsuits were originally filed by former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and Wayne County Prosecutor John O'Hair in 1999. Asking for some $400 million each in damages, the lawsuits targeted 24 gun makers and a dozen retailers.

"Possibly the worst thing about such lawsuits is that they put an unnecessary drain on the courts, while offering some sort of false hope to the victims of gun violence that something constructive is being done, when it really isn't," Gottlieb observed. "All any of these insidious legal actions have really done is garner a few headlines for publicity-seeking politicians who have demonstrated that they are more interested in flash than substance.

"While these people have relentlessly hounded law-abiding gun makers and retailers," he said, "they have done virtually nothing to take criminals off the street and improve public safety. In any venue other than publicity politics, that's called fraud. The firearms community sees through this charade, and so do sensible jurists like Michigan judges Joel Hoekstra, Kurtis Wilder and Brian Zahra. We hope their ruling closes the book on this case."

The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers & an amicus brief & fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.