From the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969), U.S. general and president



Washington D.C. – A statement issued today (Friday) by the White House on a bill that gives unprecedented legal immunity to the most reckless gun sellers in America "grossly misrepresents the lawsuits targeted by the bill and insults gun violence victims who are seeking justice in our courts," said Michael D. Barnes, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Here are some of the cases being deemed "frivolous" by the White House:

• Last year, the families of DC area sniper victims won a settlement of over $2 million from the Washington State gun dealer who could not account for the "missing" assault rifle used by the snipers and who "lost" over 200 other guns.
• New Jersey police officers David Lemongello and Ken McGuire won a $1 million settlement against a West Virginia pawnshop that negligently sold 12 semiautomatic handguns for cash to a gun trafficking team, enabling a criminal to obtain the pistol used against them.
• The family of Massachusetts slaying victim Danny Guzman, an innocent bystander shot on Christmas Eve 1999, is pursuing justice against a Massachusetts gun manufacturer that not only negligently hired criminals to work in its plant, but had such irresponsible security practices that it allowed them to walk out of the plant with guns that carried no serial numbers, one of which was used to shoot Guzman.
• And the parents of 14-year-old Anthony Oliver recently filed suit against a Philadelphia gun dealer that supplied a gun trafficker with the gun used to shoot Anthony, along with several other guns.
  

"These innocent Americans were victimized by reckless gun sellers who thought they would never be held accountable for putting guns into dangerous hands," Barnes said. "The issue posed by this legislation is simple: Are President Bush and Congress on the side of these victims asserting their fundamental legal rights as Americans, or are they on the side of irresponsible gun merchants who care nothing about the fatal consequences of their conduct?"

The answer to that question was obvious.