MANUFACTURER NOT TO BLAME
FOR ACTS OF CRIMINAL

The lawsuit filed against the manufacturer of a firearm used by a felon to shoot two law enforcement officers in New Jersey was dismissed yesterday by Kanawha County Circuit Judge Irene Berger in West Virginia. That's the last place a retail store legally sold the firearm, following a mandatory criminal background check. 

Former Orange, New Jersey, police officers Dave Lemongello and Kenneth McGuire are not entitled to damages from Southport, Connecticut-based Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc., Judge Berger ruled. Berger said it would require "a real stretch" to make the gun maker responsible because the gun had originally been sold to an Ohio wholesaler. By the time it got to the pawnshop that last sold it, it had lawfully changed hands four times. (Click here for a timeline which shows who owned the firearm between the time Ruger made it and a criminal acquired it illegally. You can also click to read the motion for a summary judgement and see how media are reporting the story.)

“The shooting of these two brave police officers by a brazen criminal is deplorable and obviously regrettable. It also might have been prevented by the state of New Jersey. Our judicial system should be used to keep criminals behind bars; not used to blame manufacturers when criminals misuse their products. Why were the illegal firearms trafficker, a convicted drug felon, and the career criminal who pulled the trigger out of prison in the first place?” questioned  Lawrence G. Keane, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry’s trade association. “Enforce the law and keep criminals behind bars, don’t scapegoat manufacturers,” said Keane.

Lawyers from the Brady Center to Prevent Handgun Violence Legal Action Project represented the police officers. They argued that Sturm, Ruger was to blame for the 2001 criminal shooting even though Sturm, Ruger had two years earlier (1999) lawfully sold the firearm to a federally licensed Ohio distributor, which in turn sold it to a federally licensed West Virginia dealer. The dealer then lawfully sold the firearm to an ordained Baptist minister, who passed a federally mandated criminal background check of FBI records. The minister later gave the firearm to gun collector friend, who was legally permitted to own the firearm. That individual subsequently pawned the firearm at a West Virginia pawnshop. The pawnshop, following a criminal background check, sold the used firearm to a woman able to pass the federal background check. But she broke the law by making the illegal 'straw purchase' on behalf of James Gray, a convicted drug felon from New Jersey. Gray illegally trafficked the firearm over state lines into New Jersey where it unlawfully traded hands in the criminal underground and ultimately ended up in the hands of Shuntez Everett, a career criminal. Everett used the firearm to shoot the police officers and perished in the gunfight with them. Gray, the convicted drug felon who trafficked the gun, and the woman who illegally bought it for him, were prosecuted and served time for their offenses.