STRANGE LAWSUIT

More a reflection on the courts than anything else

Buford Furrow used an illegally obtained weapon to kill Filipino-American letter-carrier Joseph Ileto and to wound five people at a Jewish day care center in a pair of Los Angeles-area attacks in 1999. Ileto's mother, Lillian, and families of the survivors have sued Glock Inc., the gunmaker, China North Industries Corp., RSR Management Corp and RSR Wholesale Guns Seattle Inc. contending they are liable for the attacks because they knowingly facilitated and participated in an underground illegal gun market. A federal judge threw out the case, but it was reinstated in 2003 by a divided 9th Circuit panel of judges.

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. Court records indicate the police department then exchanged the weapon at a gun shop in exchange for a different model. That shop made a legal sale of the firearm to a gun collector, who then allegedly sold it to Furrow - an ex-convict prohibited from owning guns - at a gun show in Spokane, Wash. So between Glock et. al. and the killing were several other handlers of the firearm who are not mentioned in the lawsuit, among them law enforcement.

If Glock and the RSR companies are liable for for Ileto's death by "knowingly participating" in the "underground" gun trade - even at so many degrees of separation from Ileto's killer - then just as surely the Cosmopolis, Wash., police department and the gun's resellers are guilty as well. So why are they not being sued?

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Why liberals love gun control: "The goal of gun control is not to actually control guns and make the world a safer place, but to control people. It is not as important for you can pass a criminal background check so much as it is that you feel obligated to ask the state for permission to buy a gun. Liberals know gun control laws will not stop criminals, but it will erode the sense of independence and self reliance of regular people until they feel that they can do nothing that does not meet government approval."