Gun victim plans takeover revenge on manufacturer
Dan Glaister
Wednesday June 16, 2004
The Guardian
A teenager paralysed by a gun accident 10 years ago is planning to buy the company that makes the weapon fired in the incident at a bankruptcy auction tomorrow.
Brandon Maxfield, now 17, was left paralysed when a babysitter fired a handgun owned by his parents.
Last year a jury awarded him $51m (£27.8m) damages, of which the gun manufacturer was made liable for $23m.
The following day Bryco Arms filed for bankruptcy. But the Maxfields' lawyers became suspicious when a $150,000 bid to buy the company was made by a former plant foreman.
At the same time as Bruce Jennings, the owner of Bryco, declared that he planned to retire from the business, his wife applied for a firearms sales licence.
Mr Maxfield is appealing on a website (brandonsarms.org) for donations to help him buy the company, which specialises in cheap firearms known as "Saturday night specials".
He plans to melt down the stock of 60,000 unassembled guns and close the company.
His lawyer, Richard Ruggieri, told USA Today: "The critical issue...is [preventing] the business from just being flipped over and continuing."
Bryco was found liable on the grounds that the faulty design of its gun, the P-38 semi-automatic, was partly to blame for the incident.
To unload it the safety catch had to be released. Mr Maxfield, then seven years old, was hit in the chin while the babysitter was trying to unload the weapon.
The babysitter and Mr Maxfield's parents were also found liable.
Mr Ruggieri told the website jointogether.org: "We're making an appeal for a white knight, if you will, to come forward and say, 'I don't want to see millions of these junk guns put back on the street. I'll pony up some money, sell off the machinery and maybe recover half of my money, and take a tax deduction for the rest'."
Bryco is one of many cheap gunmakers in an area of south California known for that reason as the "Ring of Fire".
They sprang up after the passing of the 1968 Gun Control Act, which banned the importation of cheap guns from abroad. Several companies in the Ring of Fire have sought bankruptcy and in the process they have avoided legal liability for incidents involving their firearms.
One had a total of 18 claims pending.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan introduced a bill which would have prevented the tactic but it was defeated by Republicans, who argued that it would harm business.
Bryco is a highly successful gun manufacturer, two of whose weapons were in the top 10 firearms listed by the US government in a report in 2000 on guns used in crime.
The industry is exempted from US consumer safety controls: manufacturers cannot be prosecuted or fined by the state for breaches, although they can, as in this case, be sued by individual plaintiffs.
"There's nothing to prevent them from making the same defective guns and selling them on the streets, as long as they're willing to face the consequences in civil court - and I think that's exactly what they plan to do under a different name," Mr Ruggieri said.
Dan Glaister
Wednesday June 16, 2004
The Guardian
A teenager paralysed by a gun accident 10 years ago is planning to buy the company that makes the weapon fired in the incident at a bankruptcy auction tomorrow.
Brandon Maxfield, now 17, was left paralysed when a babysitter fired a handgun owned by his parents.
Last year a jury awarded him $51m (£27.8m) damages, of which the gun manufacturer was made liable for $23m.
The following day Bryco Arms filed for bankruptcy. But the Maxfields' lawyers became suspicious when a $150,000 bid to buy the company was made by a former plant foreman.
At the same time as Bruce Jennings, the owner of Bryco, declared that he planned to retire from the business, his wife applied for a firearms sales licence.
Mr Maxfield is appealing on a website (brandonsarms.org) for donations to help him buy the company, which specialises in cheap firearms known as "Saturday night specials".
He plans to melt down the stock of 60,000 unassembled guns and close the company.
His lawyer, Richard Ruggieri, told USA Today: "The critical issue...is [preventing] the business from just being flipped over and continuing."
Bryco was found liable on the grounds that the faulty design of its gun, the P-38 semi-automatic, was partly to blame for the incident.
To unload it the safety catch had to be released. Mr Maxfield, then seven years old, was hit in the chin while the babysitter was trying to unload the weapon.
The babysitter and Mr Maxfield's parents were also found liable.
Mr Ruggieri told the website jointogether.org: "We're making an appeal for a white knight, if you will, to come forward and say, 'I don't want to see millions of these junk guns put back on the street. I'll pony up some money, sell off the machinery and maybe recover half of my money, and take a tax deduction for the rest'."
Bryco is one of many cheap gunmakers in an area of south California known for that reason as the "Ring of Fire".
They sprang up after the passing of the 1968 Gun Control Act, which banned the importation of cheap guns from abroad. Several companies in the Ring of Fire have sought bankruptcy and in the process they have avoided legal liability for incidents involving their firearms.
One had a total of 18 claims pending.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan introduced a bill which would have prevented the tactic but it was defeated by Republicans, who argued that it would harm business.
Bryco is a highly successful gun manufacturer, two of whose weapons were in the top 10 firearms listed by the US government in a report in 2000 on guns used in crime.
The industry is exempted from US consumer safety controls: manufacturers cannot be prosecuted or fined by the state for breaches, although they can, as in this case, be sued by individual plaintiffs.
"There's nothing to prevent them from making the same defective guns and selling them on the streets, as long as they're willing to face the consequences in civil court - and I think that's exactly what they plan to do under a different name," Mr Ruggieri said.
Whew! I feel better now. 