-Caveat Lector- ---------- Forwarded message -------- NAACP To File Lawsuit Seeking Gun Industry Changes Updated 12:03 AM ET July 13, 1999 By Grant McCool NEW YORK (Reuters) - The NAACP, the oldest and largest U.S. civil rights group, said Monday it was filing a lawsuit "in an effort to break the backs" of gun manufacturers that sell and distribute weapons across the country. "They can't go and get a state legislature to stop us, they can't scare us, they will now have to deal with us," The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) president and CEO Kweisi Mfume said in his keynote address at the 90-year-old group's annual convention in New York. Mfume announced that the NAACP would be a plaintiff in the lawsuit to be filed this week in federal court in New York, in response to state legislatures in Louisiana, Georgia and Illinois barring cities and counties from filing lawsuits against handgun makers. Attorneys for the NAACP said it would be an injunctive lawsuit seeking to change the way the gun industry does business and restrict sales at gun shows. The lawsuit would not be for monetary gain. "The NAACP makes it perfectly clear that we will be filing litigation ... against the gun industry in an effort to break the backs of those who help perpetuate the sale of weapons in our communities," Mfume said to loud applause from delegates attending the six-day convention, which runs through Thursday. The civil rights organization's lawsuit follows the course already taken by 22 cities and municipalities, including Boston, Chicago and New Orleans to use the courts to try to reduce gun-related violence and deaths. Mfume cited shootings this year at the Columbine High School near Denver, Colorado and the shooting spree of white supremacist Benjamin Smith in Illinois 10 days ago. Authorities filed charges against Donald Fiessinger, 64, for allegedly selling Smith the guns he used to kill two and wound several others. Authorities said they believed Fiessinger had illegally peddled about 65 guns bought at gun shops over the past two years. "When 65 guns are sold to one person, something is deadly wrong," Mfume said in his speech Monday. "The fact that illegal trafficking in firearms disproportionately affects minority communities is indisputable," he added. "Urban communities have sadly become accustomed to firearms in their neighborhoods, so much so that too many of us are no longer shocked by the sound of gunfire outside of our homes." NAACP chairman Julian Bond said black males between the ages of 15 and 24 were five times as likely to be injured by firearms as white males of the same age. He said black females were four times as likely to be injured as white females. He said gunfire has been the leading cause of death of young African-American males for more than 30 years. "It is the members of the NAACP and the larger community of African Americans we represent who are the greatest victims by far of this mindless commerce and this mindless unregulated commerce in firearms," Bond said. "We hope this litigation is the beginning of the end of this mindless distribution of guns in our communities." Gun manufacturers and lobbyists for the industry, including the National Rifle Association (NRA), have fought back in state legislatures and in Congress to block the lawsuits filed by various cities and municipalities across the United States. Last month, the NRA was singled out by President Clinton and other Democrats for lobbying to defeat a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would have required three-day background checks of buyers at gun shows. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, accept it and live up to it."-The Buddha DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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