Gun Control: The Criminal Lobby

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April 22, 2003

Gun Control: The Criminal Lobby

By Paul Craig Roberts

In Democracy by Decree, recently published by Yale

University Press, New York Law School professors Ross

Sandler and David Schoenbrod show how the plaintiff???s bar

and judges have used consent decrees to take government away

from elected officials.

Two recent books by the Manhattan Institute’s Walter K.

Olson and the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre

show how class action lawyers are trying to use the courts

to take away our constitutional rights.

In The Rule of Lawyers (St. Martin???s Press, 2003), Mr.

Olson describes how left-wing gun control fanatics used

wealthy class action lawyers and private foundations in an

effort to destroy U.S. gun manufacturers. The lawyers

invented new concepts of liability and blamed gun

manufacturers for the misuse of guns by individuals.

Mr. Olson notes that the twisted argument of the suits would

hold match companies responsible for the actions of

arsonists.

The suits, of course, were not designed to win a legal

point, but to bankrupt gun manufacturers, many of which are

small and family owned, with legal fees defending against

many separate lawsuits filed in behalf of many cities.

The goal of the lawsuits was a settlement that would create

a five-member politically unaccountable ???commission??? to take

over the gun industry.

Mr. Olson notes the irony of cities, which routinely sell

thousands of used police weapons on the gun market, fronting

for lawsuits against gun manufacturers for selling their

wares to federally licensed dealers. Mr. Olson exposes the

dishonesty of representing anti-gun billionaires, such as

George Soros, and billionaire class action lawyers, whose

trophy investments include sports teams, as ???underdogs??? in

their onslaught against small, thinly financed family-owned

gun manufacturers.

Gullible Americans are not rare. All that is required for a
small wealthy elite to destroy the Second Amendment is a
gullible jury and a judge who permits a class action suit to
expropriate the powers of legislators.

Wealthy gun control fanatics are in the forefront of the
powerful lobbies determined to block any tort reform that
would prevent private groups from assuming the powers of
lawmakers. In Guns, Freedom and Terrorism (WND Books,

2003), Wayne LaPierre describes the attempt underway to

destroy the concept of personal responsibility and to hold

innocent third parties liable for criminal acts.

We might think this can never happen in America, but Mr.

LaPierre???s report in the May 2003 American Rifleman shows

that victims of criminals are now held responsible for the

actions of the criminals who victimized them.

In 1992 two teenage males stole three handguns from a gun

show. Next the teenagers went on a rampage breaking into
cars. Stealing one, they amused themselves by sliding it
into garbage cans. When they lost control and crashed, the

person who approached the car to see if they were injured

was shot twice for his compassion.

A normal person might think it is clear enough that the

teenagers themselves are responsible for their crime spree.

However, in 1996 an Ohio court decided that it was the gun

show promoter!

In 2002 Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center, an

anti-gun group, told the House Subcommittee on Commerce,

Trade, and Consumer Protection that tort reform would

interfere with the ability to hold innocent people

responsible for the actions of criminals.

It is important for the American people, she claimed, for

decisions such as the Ohio one to flourish.

New York???s Sullivan Act, the original gun control law, was

passed in response to the criminal lobby in New York???s Red

Hook district. Robbers objected to the right of their
intended victims to carry concealed weapons and succeeded in
getting the right outlawed.

It is equally clear today that criminals are the only
beneficiary of gun control laws. In his book Mr. LaPierre

documents the results of Great Britain???s total ban on

handguns, rifles, pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns.

Violent crime in Britain has exploded. A disarmed public is
at the mercy of well-armed thugs. The British people are

robbed, raped and murdered in their homes and offices, on

their streets, and in their subways and public parks.

The British experience proves beyond any shadow of doubt the

truth of the NRA???s point:

???When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.???

Paul Craig Roberts is the author with Lawrence M. Stratton

of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and
Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of
Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow???s Forbes Magazine

interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of

prosecutorial misconduct.