Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 20, 1994 TAG: 9405200052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: San Francisco Examiner
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO LENGTH: Medium
The four virtually identical suits, filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court, accuse the arms makers of selling assault weapons and accessories that have no legitimate purpose and are meant only to ``disable or kill large numbers of people very rapidly.''
The victims were among eight people killed by Gian Luigi Ferri last July 1.
Ferri, 55, a former client of a law firm in the building where the victims were shot, wounded six other people before taking his own life in the worst mass shooting in San Francisco history.
Plaintiff Carol Kingsley, the widow of Jack Berman, a lawyer with the Pettit & Martin firm who was killed by Ferri, said in a statement, ``The manufacturers and store owners knew full well that these guns and devices are designed to be used exactly as they were used last July 1: to kill human beings - lots of them at once - by a rapid shower of bullets.''
The suits seek millions of dollars for wrongful deaths, emotional and economic losses, unfair business practices and punitive damages.
An industry representative said the suits were without merit.
It is the latest legal shot at the nation's assault weapon industry. While suits challenging the industry generally have been unsuccessful, lawyers for the family say they are making a different legal argument: that the guns ``worked exactly as they were intended to work.''
The suits were filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.
Gail Robinson, an attorney for the center, said that selling such weapons to the public was ``an ultra-hazardous activity,'' that the devices had ``no legitimate societal purpose'' and that the makers should be held responsible for the foreseeable results of their products' use: death and injury of innocent citizens.
Robinson said the kind of semiautomatic pistol Ferri used - a TEC-DC9 made by Intratec Firearms Inc. of Miami - was disproportionately used by drug dealers, gangsters and other criminals, and that Intratec knew or should have known that.
According to federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms statistics, that kind of semiautomatic pistol is traced in more criminal investigations than any other type of gun, Robinson said.
Named as defendants are:
Intratec, whose ads boast that the TEC-DC9 delivers ``a high volume of firepower,'' is ``as tough as your toughest customer'' and is resistant to fingerprints.
Hell-Fire Systems Inc. of Colorado, which made the spring-loaded devices that enabled Ferri to fire at the speed of a fully automatic gun - even though fully automatic guns are illegal.
U.S.A. Magazines Inc. of Downey, Calif., which made the clips that allowed Ferri to fire 50 bullets from each of his two TEC-DC9s without reloading.
Super Pawn, a Las Vegas chain of pawn and gun shops that sold Ferri a gun.
A Super Pawn employee acknowledged that Ferri had bought a gun there but denied that it had been used in the massacre.
Richard Feldman, a lobbyist with the Atlanta-based American Shooting Sports Council, which represents Intratec and U.S.A. Magazines as well as other gun companies, called the suits ``hogwash.'' He said individuals like Ferri - not the guns - commit murders.
Feldman disputed whether federal statistics showed that the gun often was traced to crimes, saying he owned four of them and that most owners were law-abiding.
``It's a shame that someone in that law firm didn't have a derringer, because if they did, they could have stopped him,'' Feldman said.
Jess Guy, who heads the ATF office in San Jose, said TEC-DC9 guns were cheap and poorly made and had ``adequate accuracy if you're just driving down the street shooting at people on the corners.''
Guy said a 1989 California law had banned the weapon's predecessor, the TEC-9, but that Intratec had gotten around the law by making a superficial change and renaming the gun. State law also bars the Hell-Fire trigger device, he said.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB