;)
Crime And Gun Control
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Police As Gun Suppliers
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Most of the 26 municipalities that have sued the gun industry for
flooding the market with handguns have, themselves, poured
hundreds of thousands of second-hand police guns and confiscated
firearms into circulation, experts report. Thousands of these
weapons have turned up in crimes -- including a Glock 26 pistol
used in the attack on a Jewish Community Center and in the
killing of a postman last week.
Critics of the suits say cities like Boston, New Orleans and San
Francisco have much to account for in the process of attacking
gunmakers.
- Data obtained by the Wall Street Journal show that at
least 1,100 former police guns were among the 193,203
crime guns traced last year by the federal Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
- But Columbia University expert Howard Andrews says that
number probably only represents "the tip of the iceberg"
in former law-enforcement weapons used in crimes.
- Handgun Control Inc. -- which as the nation's biggest gun
control group is helping organize and lead the municipal
lawsuits against the industry -- has reportedly tried to
play down the issue of municipal sales of used guns.
- Police swaps of old guns for new first became common in
the mid-1980s and has picked up recently.
Since last fall, officials in a number of cities that were filing
or planning to file suits against the gun industry have worried
that their own police departments' methods of getting rid of old
service weapons would expose the cities to allegations of
hypocrisy.
The municipal suits accuse the industry of failing to oversee
aggressively how guns are distributed and sold. The municipal
officials fretted that their cities, too, could be accused of
negligence if there was a risk that guns they were getting rid of
might end up in criminal hands.
Source: Vanessa O'Connell and Paul M. Barrett, "Cities Suing Gun
Firms Have a Weak Spot: They're Suppliers, Too," Wall Street
Journal, August 16, 1999.
For more on Police and Guns, Liability and Guns
http://www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/crime51.html
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