Who Buys 87 Guns At Once? Brady Holds Gun Manufacturer, Distributor, and Dealer Accountable!
Jonathan Lowy, Vice President, Litigation, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
How do you end America’s gun violence epidemic? Through victims standing up and fighting back.
Take the case of Daniel Williams. Daniel was a boy with a dream. His basketball talents would earn him a college scholarship, maybe a chance at the NBA. At 16, already a star on his high school team, he was on a basketball court near his Buffalo home, working to make his dream real.
Then came the nightmare: a car drives by, a gun fired. The bullet ripped through Daniel’s stomach, knocking him to the ground. Certain he was going to die, he crawled and cried until someone called 9-1-1. Against the odds, Daniel survived.
Daniel was a boy with a dream. His basketball talents would earn him a college scholarship, maybe a chance at the NBA.
When I met Daniel, I explained how his dreams came to be dashed on that Buffalo playground. The story started in Ohio, where the gun company Beemiller made cheap ‘Saturday night special’ handguns. After production, Beemiller’s distributor, MKS Supply, would spread these guns across the country. Charles Brown, the head of MKS, would sell guns at local gun shows. Thousands of these guns were later recovered in crimes; one was used in the Columbine High School massacre.
Over five months in 2000, Brown sold over 180 Beemiller handguns to a gun trafficker and his two accomplices. All were in cash, and all were bulk sales of multiple guns--including a sale of 87 guns in a single purchase. Who buys 87 guns at once, or 180 guns in a few months? Traffickers who intend to resell guns on the criminal market.
No one should have been surprised when a gun trafficker drove these Saturday night specials into New York--a state with much stronger gun laws than Ohio--and sold them to criminals. One of these guns was later used to shoot Daniel. Buffalo police spent years recovering these trafficked guns at crime scenes and trying to get them off the streets.
After I talked with him about how gun litigation can reform dangerous gun industry practices, Daniel became a man with another dream: sending a message that if you put profits over people, and place lives at stake, you would be held accountable.
I worked with other lawyers on Brady’s legal team, as well as James Grable and Terry Connors, two skilled Buffalo trial lawyers, to bring a lawsuit for Daniel against Beemiller, MKS, and Brown.
As compelling as the facts of the case were, special gun industry protections dragged the case out for 15 years--with an improper removal to federal court, four appellate arguments, four trial judges, and no-holds-barred litigation.
But in the end, Daniel’s dream was realized--not of starring in the NBA, but of making a difference that will save lives. His lawsuit won several critical precedent-setting victories: the first New York appellate decision holding that a gun manufacturer, distributor, and dealer can be liable for a criminal shooting with one of its guns; one of the first decisions in the nation holding that the federal gun industry protection law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, does not provide gun companies with the sweeping immunity they claim; a landmark summary judgment ruling that MKS violated federal law in the sale. And on the eve of trial, we obtained a favorable settlement that, in addition to other terms, guaranteed that MKS would institute specific reasonable sales practices--the first gun distributor in the country to make such a commitment. Other victims of gun industry negligence are relying on these wins in courts throughout the country to change how guns are sold in America.
Daniel almost lost his life, but he ended up saving innumerable lives through impact litigation. That impact would not have been possible without the Impact Fund’s support, which provided a lifeline that kept the case afloat, and helped Daniel and his legal team to stick it out through interminable delays, to victory. Daniel is now a father, a fine young man, justly proud of what we were all able to accomplish.
On Daniel’s behalf, thank you.