Police Chiefs Campaign to Fight Senate Bill That Would Protect Gun Dealers
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
A large number of police chiefs and other law enforcement officials have joined gun control advocates in a campaign to defeat a Senate bill that would grant gun makers and dealers almost total immunity from lawsuits.
The bill, which is strongly supported by the National Rifle Association, is scheduled for a Senate vote in early March but could come up for a vote even sooner. As many as 59 senators have signed on as sponsors, only one vote shy of the number needed to defeat any attempt at a filibuster. A similar bill passed easily in the House last fall.
The police officials' campaign began last week when Chief William J. Bratton of the Los Angeles Police Department held a news conference there denouncing the bill. Chief Bratton and 80 other police officials then signed a letter to the Senate expressing their opposition. At the same time, a full-page advertisement featuring a photograph of Chief Bratton and paid for by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence appeared in The Washington Post.
The advertisement is expected to appear soon in other major newspapers and on television, and Chief Bratton, the former New York City police commissioner, said he would go to Washington to lobby senators.
The campaign is supported by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents the chiefs of police in the 50 largest cities.
"To give gun manufacturers and dealers immunity from lawsuits is crazy," Chief Bratton said in a telephone interview.
"If you give them immunity," he added, "what incentive do they have to make guns with safer designs, or what incentive do the handful of bad dealers have to follow the law when they sell guns?"
"This is not about doing away with guns, but about trying to ensure the safety of police officers and the American public," said Chief Bratton, who was police commissioner in New York City in the early 1990's when there was a sharp drop in homicides, as there was last year in Los Angeles under Chief Bratton.
Posted by P6 at February 17, 2004 06:26 PM
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Comments
Good ole' Times -- read the whole article trying to find the proper name of the bill so I could look it up (or just any name for it) and didn't see it.
Apparently, they are talking about S659 (Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act). I read the act, and they are full of crap. It does nothing to limit product liability, and in fact only applies to criminal use of firearms. It specifically immunizes them from liability arising from "the harm caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products". That is an immunity that someone is supposed to already have under common law, and this is an attempt to codify that.
Let's face it. Having a viable firearms industry in America is a vital national defense issue. Sporting and personal defense arms subsidize the arms used by our police forces. This is nothing more than codifying a protection that you and I (as people who haven't been specifically targeted by special interests) already enjoy.
Posted by Phelps at February 18, 2004 11:10 AM