NAACP Rests Case Against Firearms Industry

"Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

BROOKLYN, NY - Having utterly failed to prove the baseless allegation that the firearm industry knowingly and willingly sells guns to criminals, the NAACP has rested its case after four weeks of testimony.

"The NAACP has not proven its baseless and highly offensive allegation against a law abiding industry. The case was, as Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'," said Lawrence G. Keane, vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). The NSSF is the firearm industry's trade association.

Despite the stunningly poor case the NAACP offered, Keane remained pessimistic about the trial's outcome. "We are not under any delusions. Due to Ms. Barnes and the NAACP's blatant judge shopping, the verdict is almost certainly preordained. The NAACP is offering the same evidence from the same expert witnesses in front of the same judge as the 1999 Hamilton trial. The NAACP case is Judge Weinstein's mulligan," Keane said. Weinstein's Hamilton decision was reversed on appeal.

"Judge Weinstein, not the "advisory" jury will decide this case," Keane added.

NAACP general counsel Dennis Hayes opened the case by comparing the defendants to segregationists and baby killers. His comments were so outrageous that Judge Weinstein admonished Mr. Hayes and had to remind the "advisory" jury that the case was not about segregation or discrimination. Hayes openly admitted the NAACP was pursuing its lawsuit because legislators had not enacted its anti-gun agenda.

The NAACP's witnesses included NAACP employee Mildred Roxborough, NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, and the self-described "bombshell witness," Robert Ricker. Additionally, in an attempt to substitute "junk" science for actual evidence, the NAACP called several "experts" whose opinions have already been rejected by New York courts.

Ms. Roxborough testified the NAACP has absolutely no knowledge of any wrongdoing by any defendant that caused any harm to the NAACP or enabled a criminal to obtain a firearm, or was a factor in any firearm related injury or death.

Former Congressman and current NAACP President Kweisi Mfume's testimony was insightful as to his and the NAACP's shocking lack of knowledge about the firearm industry and how it's regulated. Despite his years in Congress, Mfume testified he didn't know how the industry was regulated, but he thinks the industry is responsible for crime because the government, in his opinion, isn't doing enough to enforce the laws that regulate the sale and distribution of firearms. Those laws, of course, are passed by Congress. Although he couldn't say what the industry has failed to do, he was sure it wasn't enough to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

Mfume also testified the NAACP didn't sue a single retailer because he thought retailers are regulated, implying manufacturers and distributors are not. "Testimony from a former congressman that retailers are regulated while manufacturers and distributors are not is inexcusable and proves just how little Mfume, the NAACP and its attorneys know about the industry they are blaming for the acts of criminals," Keane said.

Next, the NAACP called "bombshell" witness Robert Ricker, who briefly headed a now defunct firearm industry trade group in 1999. When confronted with his former statements denouncing lawsuits, like the NAACP's, that avoid the legislature in order to regulate through litigation, he simply said he made those statements for the gun trade group he worked for at the time. He then admitted that he's now being paid $225 an hour by the NAACP to testify on its behalf.

There were, however, some statements about his former industry from which Ricker did not distance himself. He told the "advisory" jury that the vast and overwhelming majority of firearm manufacturers and distributors are good, honest businessmen.

The NAACP's attorney, Ms. Barnes, also called many of the same "experts" she used in her ultimately failed 1999 Hamilton suit against the firearm industry, also heard by Judge Weinstein. "This agenda driven, 'junk' science has already been rejected by New York's high court," Keane said. "Bogus statistics are not a substitute for evidence, something the NAACP doesn't have," he added.

The defense will now call acknowledged experts to refute the plaintiff's scientifically and methodologically flawed, intellectually dishonest, agenda-driven conclusions. "We welcome the opportunity to show the advisory jurors, and hopefully Judge Weinstein, how baseless, frivolous and hollow the NAACP's case is," Keane said.

"This case is the poster child for the need in Congress to pass the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (S 659). This common sense legal reform will end junk lawsuits like the NAACP's that seek to blame law abiding manufacturers for the actions of criminals. The legislation has already passed the House by an overwhelming, bi-partisan majority of votes and is supported by a majority of the Senate. Thirty states have already adopted similar legislation," Keane said.

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