BULLET POINTS Vol. 2 – No. 33 · CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT DISMISSES SUIT AGAINST FIREARMS MANUFACTURER. . . SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In the third major defeat in as many months for anti-gun activists attempting to hold firearms manufacturers legally responsible for the criminal misuse of their product, the California Supreme Court ruled (5-1) today that victims of a July 1993 criminal shooting in a San Francisco skyscraper cannot sue the manufacturer of the firearm used. Lawyers claimed that Miami-based Navegar, Inc., the manufacturer of the weapon, was responsible for the criminal shooting because of the way it designed the firearm. In dismissing the case, the Supreme Court said, “the Legislature has declared as a matter of public policy that a gun manufacturer may not be held liable ‘[in] a products liability action … on the basis that the benefits of [its] product do not outweigh the risk of injury posed by [the product’s] potential to cause serious injury, damage or death when discharged.’” Today’s decision is the most recent in a series of appellate court decisions around the country that have held that gun makers cannot be held liable for the criminal misuse of their product. “This decision recognizes that firearms manufacturers are not responsible to victims of criminal violence committed with firearms and that the potential of firearms to cause injury does not mean they are defectively designed,” said Lawrence G. Keane, vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry’s trade association. Other major decisions handed down in recent months include the dismissal by the Louisiana Supreme Court of a New Orleans lawsuit against firearms manufacturers and dismissal by the New York State Court of Appeals of Hamilton vs. Accu-tek, the first major lawsuit attempting to hold a firearm manufacturer responsible for the criminal misuse of a legally sold and non-defective product. This California Supreme Court decision is also a significant setback to Los Angeles and San Francisco and the other California municipalities that have sued the firearms industry to recover the cost of dealing with criminal violence committed with firearms. · HARRIS PUBLICATIONS JOINS HERITAGE FUND . . . A leading publisher of a host of shooting-related magazines, Harris Publications in New York, has pledged its support to the Hunting and Shooting Sports Heritage Foundation. “We’re fortunate to make our living in the hunting and shooting industry,” said Harris publisher Virginia Commander, “and we want to do our part to help protect and promote our hunting and shooting traditions.” Harris Publications publishes Combat Handguns, Guns and Weapons for Law Enforcement, Guns of the Old West, Tactical Knives, and Whitetail Hunting Strategies, plus a variety of outdoor annuals. · SENATE REJECTS GUN BUYBACK PLAN . . . By 65-33, the U.S. Senate voted down an effort by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to provide $15 million in funding for a highly controversial gun buyback program for the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. The program was launched by the Clinton administration two years ago, but President Bush recently announced its elimination because there was no evidence that it was effective in reducing gun violence, and questions had been raised over the legality of using federal money that was meant to combat illegal drugs in public housing projects to buy back guns. · NSSF BOARD MEMBERS ELECTED TO CONGRESSIONAL SPORTSMEN’S FOUNDATION BOARD . . . National Shooting Sports Foundation Board members Bob Behn, president of Marlin Firearms, and Steve Hornady, president of Hornady Manufacturing Company, were recently elected to the Board of Governors of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF). Behn and Hornady join two other NSSF Board members already represented on the CSF Board, including Jim Bequette, vice-president and executive editor of PRIMEDIA, and Bob Delfay, president and chief executive officer of NSSF. Other hunting and shooting sports industry executives represented on the CSF Board include Dan Brothers, chief executive officer of the LaSalle Group; Tony Caligiuri, president of Boyt Harness Company/Bob Allen Sportswear; Mike Callahan, director of merchandising, hard goods for Cabelas; Buddy Kronsberg, director of leadership giving and corporate development for Ducks Unlimited; Mike McFadden, vice-president divisional merchandise manager for Wal-Mart; and Ellie Shimer, director corporate sales promotion for Bass Pro Shops. The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation serves as the link between sportsmen, wildlife organizations and industry and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, a 300-member bipartisan coalition of members of Congress who support our hunting, shooting and outdoor traditions. · CASE AGAINST GUN COMPANY GOES BACK TO COURT . . . A product liability and negligence suit previously dismissed against Bryco Arms has been reinstated after a ruling July 27 by the New Mexico Court of Appeals. The case seeks to hold Bryco, and gun distributor Jennings Firearms, Inc., responsible for an accidental shooting between two teenagers because the J-22 pistol involved did not have a “magazine-out safety,” a “chamber load indicator,” or a written warning on the gun alerting users that it could fire with the magazine removed. In originally dismissing the case, the trial judge called it “another attempt to outlaw or severely restrict the manufacture of a product using the tort law.” Such efforts, according to the judge, were “better left to the legislative branch of government.” The Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and sent the case back to the lower court saying it was up to a jury to decide whether the gun presented an unreasonable risk because it lacked the various features, whether Bryco had a duty to incorporate those features in its product, and whether the lack of those features contributed directly to the shooting. · AUTHOR SEEKS Photos and Memorabilia . . . Larry Wilson, well-known author of numerous authoritative publications on firearms and firearms manufacturers, is currently working on a comprehensive “coffee table” book on participation by women in the hunting and shooting sports entitled “Women at Arms — Silk & Steel.” Larry is in need of historic and modern photos of women participating in any form of shooting as well as any memorabilia such as patches or pins from clubs, organizations or companies that might be useful in collages illustrating his book. We have told Larry that we would ask Bullet Points readers to consider loaning him any photos or memorabilia for illustrating this fine book. Photos or memorabilia may be mailed (preferably over-nighted) to Larry at: Larry Wilson, Castle View, 103-4 Ferry Road, Route 148, Hadlyme, CT 06439. Items are needed by August 15. Questions or comments can be sent to Larry at WilsonBook@aol.com. Items will be returned if requested. · · · · · · BULLET POINTS “ZEROES IN” . . . At the request of readers, Bullet Points occasionally “zeroes in on” the goals and accomplishment of key NSSF programs and looks at timely industry issues. The following article concerns NSSF’s media education seminars. · MEDIA RESPOND TO ARTICLE ABOUT ANTI-GUN BIAS . . . An article about the role NSSF’s media education seminars are playing to help counter anti-gun bias in the media has been generating a lot of response after being published in the July/August issue of the American Journalism Review. The article was written by Michael Bane, NSSF’s media education seminar consultant. According to AJR’s editor, most of the feedback has so far, surprisingly, been supportive of Bane’s viewpoint. “Glad to see this point of view is being put out there,” wrote one reporter. Another said that because the article put forth a view that was not popular it made her think more deeply about the issue. The article is reprinted here or is available here. Targeting the Media's Anti-gun Bias One journalist teaches his colleagues about guns by taking them to the shooting range. By Michael Bane (Reprinted by permission of the American Journalism Review. This article appeared in the July/August 2001 issue.) SO I'M DOING WHAT magazine writers are always doing--pitching articles--this time to one of my regular clients, a top men's magazine. I'd finished pitching and was winding up the conversation when the editor interrupted. "There's one thing I'd like for you to explain to me," the editor said. "We send you to cool places and pay you a lot of money. You're one of our guys, one of us..." I warily agreed. "Can you explain to me about the guns?" he said. Ah, I thought, the guns. Since this was one of the largest outdoor sports magazines in the country, I'd suggested a story on sport shooters. I'd also mentioned that I'd been a competitive pistol shooter for 15 years. "I'm a competitor," I told my editor. "I race bicycles, do triathlons, climb mountains. I'm also a shooter. I shoot because it's fun." "Bullshit," he replied. Which is how I came to have what is laughingly referred to as "the most nightmarish job in the gun culture." I'm the guy who deals with the national media. I teach reporters, editors and correspondents to shoot. And in the year-and-a-half since, with the backing of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), I've been running media seminars. I've come to some very unsettling conclusions about the relationship between reporters and guns. In fact, I believe the media--print and electronic--may be the single biggest casualty in the three decades of this "shooting war." First, the seminars. NSSF brings together journalists and shooting sports champions for one-on-one instruction. The seminars are not specifically political, but, as I make clear to potential participants, no subjects are off-limits. In our first five seminars, we've had reporters from the Wall Street Journal and other national dailies, top writers for such publications as Newsweek, Outside, Men's Fitness and other magazines and electronic journalists of various stripe. For people who are part of the gun culture, the results have been amazing. At the beginning of the seminars, almost all the journalists are anti-gun, to one degree or another, some virulently so. By the end there's a huge turnaround. How huge? Several of our participants have actually purchased guns and started competitive shooting. "You're not the Michigan Militia," said one reporter for a national daily. "You're the kind of people I'd hang out with. Heck, you're the kind of people I'd date." You're thinking, "That's great--they're breaking down stereotypes on both sides of the fence." But a-year-and-a-half of seminars has confirmed a simple truth--there is an overwhelming anti-gun bias among journalists, a bias that has spread from opinion to factual coverage of the issue. Let me throw some numbers out. —A study by the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group, found that during a two-year period (July 1, 1997, to June 30, 1999), ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN ran 357 stories in favor of gun control, compared with 36 against, a ratio of almost 10 to one. The biggest "offender" was ABC's "Good Morning America," which ran 92 anti-gun stories and one pro-gun story. —A study by University of Michigan doctoral candidate Brian A. Patrick, released in June 1999, found that the National Rifle Association was portrayed negatively in editorial and op-ed pieces 87 percent of the time (as opposed to 52 percent negative collectively for four other citizens' lobbying groups, including the NAACP and ACLU). More ominously, Patrick's study documented a clear anti-gun bias in the news coverage of the NRA by comparing things such as use of descriptive language, use of quotes and use of photos. Most telling to me are the journalists who are not allowed to attend the NSSF seminars. In one case, a journalist had agreed to come. He said he had argued with his producers that there was a need to balance their coverage of firearms. Later in the week, he called to cancel, and after extracting a promise to never reveal his name or media outlet, said that his producers had nixed his visit on the grounds that they were "unwilling to present any positive firearms stories," and the best way to do that was just not assign any journalists to stories that could turn out to have a pro-gun spin. We talked for a long time, because he clearly felt he had walked into an ethical dilemma--which, of course, he had. Substitute "Hispanic" or "Democrat" for "firearms" in the above quote and try to imagine the political firestorm that would result. In the end, he didn't attend: "They made it clear to me that my job was on the line," he said. A newbie reporter at a metropolitan daily? Nope--a veteran national political correspondent, whose name you would recognize, working for one of the most prestigious national news outlets in the country. And his is not an isolated case. What is going on here? Do the time-honored rules of journalistic objectivity apply in every case except firearms? Have we, as journalists, reached such an overwhelming consensus that "guns are bad" that we're willing to look the other way while a journalistic tradition that's taken more than a hundred years to build is methodically disassembled? After one of the seminars, a writer for a national newsweekly asked for a few minutes of my time. He had, coincidentally, covered the Columbine tragedy and had approached the seminar with open skepticism. "I now understand why you guys hate us so much," he told me. "We get everything wrong, don't we?"

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