The “Bad Apple” Trope

So the Brady Campaign has been running hard on this!

The cases reveal how difficult it is to go after what the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence calls “bad apple” gun dealers. The group defines bad apples as dealers who don’t operate ethically and responsibly. Brady says most federally licensed gun dealers run the proper background checks and fill out the appropriate paperwork so firearms can be tracked. But a handful of dealers operate lax shops or skirt federal laws, Brady has found. These “bad apple” shops comprise five percent of dealers but are responsible for 90 percent of the guns used in crimes, according to the campaign.

Note in no place there do they say any dealers fail to follow the law…they sure imply it, but never actually SAY it. Also in this article, and on their own website, they CONSTANTLY trumpet that a small number of “Bad Apple” dealers are supplying 90% of the crime guns….but they never actually LIST the dealers.

The Brady Campaign is well known for being blatantly dishonest. In fact there ARE no “Bad Apple” Dealers, there ARE dealers who operate in high-crime areas (you know, the place where you WANT a gun shop) and guns are stolen from private property like any other item….only when a junkie is found OD’d with some pilfered Oxies they don’t go claiming the CVS on Martin Luther King Boulevard is a “Bad Apple Pharmacy”, because THAT would be Crazy!

Anti-gun activists ARE crazy.

Brady has tried to go after these so-called bad apples in court, but the group’s efforts have been stymied by a 2005 law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA.

Said without irony! FFLs are heavily regulated, and if they are breaking the law the ATF has ZERO issue shutting them down….even if their “Violation” is simply putting “Y” in a box that requires a “Yes”.

So yeah, when the Brady Campaign attempts to sue a gun dealership that has done NOTHING WRONG, they get shut down. Oh the horror these lunatics can’t run rough-shod on every hard-working American they don’t personally like.

PLCAA was passed after years of successful lawsuits against gun dealers and manufacturers. The bill, passed with the NRA’s strong backing, assures that gun dealers cannot be held responsible for criminal acts done with their products. It’s a protection, advocates say, no other industry enjoys.

Brady believes it puts gun stores and manufacturers above the law. Not everyone agrees.

Again, the ATF! They are not above the law when there is an entire law enforcement agency out there to oversee them.

But yeah, Gun dealers should be held responsible for when their products are used illegally, often by people who STOLE them. I should also be held responsible if somebody steals my car and runs somebody over. The liquor store should be held responsible when somebody drives drunk. The Pharmacy, and while we’re at it the drug company, should be held responsible when some tweaker rails a whole bottle of pain killers against all doctor’s orders, pharmacy consultation, and warnings on the bottle!

Anti-gun activists ARE crazy.

Take the lawsuit against Lucky Gunner, an e-commerce site that sold ammunition to the gunman who killed 12 and wounded many others during a shooting spree in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012. Brady lawyers represented the plaintiffs — Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, the parents of Jessica Ghawi, a 24-year-old woman who died as a result of the shooting — and alleged that the site lacks reasonable safeguards to prevent dangerous people from acquiring weapons. But the suit garnered particularly strong criticism from a federal judge in Colorado, who said there was little evidence that Lucky Gunner was, in fact, a bad apple.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch wrote in a June 17 court order that the plaintiffs and Brady, the “apparent sponsor of this case,” were not only wrong to challenge the e-commerce site, but that they had also used the lawsuit to play off of the emotions of the shooter’s ongoing trial in an effort to sway public opinion. He ordered the plaintiffs to pay Lucky Gunner’s $203,000 in legal fees.

God I hope they go bankrupt for that!

The story goes on, lots of bad people who got guns, and no wrong-doing from the gun store.

Anti-gun activists ARE crazy.

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4 Responses to The “Bad Apple” Trope

  1. Bob S. says:

    Look at the conflation they use in this sentence.

    Take the lawsuit against Lucky Gunner, an e-commerce site that sold ammunition to the gunman who killed 12 and wounded many others during a shooting spree in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012. Brady lawyers represented the plaintiffs — Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, the parents of Jessica Ghawi, a 24-year-old woman who died as a result of the shooting — and alleged that the site lacks reasonable safeguards to prevent dangerous people from acquiring weapons,.

    Isn’t it just so magical how ‘ammunition’ turns into ‘weapons’?

    Nor do they point out that according the the government that straw purchasers already make up 47% of the sources for illegal firearms.

    However, this does not address the largest sources (straw purchasers and theft), which would most likely become larger if background checks at gun shows and private sellers were addressed. The secondary market is the primary source of crime guns. Ludwig and Cook (2000) compared states that introduced Brady checks to those states that already had background checks and found no effect of the new background checks. They hypothesized that the background checks simply shifted to the secondary
    market those offenders who normally purchased in the primary market.

    So the ‘bad apples’ could actually be fully following the law — and still be a ‘source’ of illegal guns.

    • Archer says:

      “Isn’t it just so magical how ‘ammunition’ turns into ‘weapons’? “

      Be sure to pull this example out the next time the Brady Bunch tries to ban ammunition by claiming the 2nd Amendment protects the right to keep and bear “arms”, but ammo is not protected.

  2. TS says:

    The bill, passed with the NRA’s strong backing, assures that gun dealers cannot be held responsible for criminal acts done with their products.

    Wow, they actually got it right. They usually say it gives them “blanket immunity” from all negligence, or something. But then they go off the deep end:

    It’s a protection, advocates say, no other industry enjoys.

    No, every industry is not responsible for criminal acts done with their products. Every single one.

    • Archer says:

      Brady believes it puts gun stores and manufacturers above the law. Not everyone agrees.

      Brady also believes “gun violence” victims should be put above other victims. Thankfully, not everyone agrees with that, either.

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