July 1, 1993
The old John Luigi Ferri page here should perhaps be corrected to read:
|
Gian Luigi FERRI July 1, 1993 |
Apparently dissatisfied with the legal services
he had received from the law firm of Pettit
& Martin, he entered their offices on
the 34th floor of 101 California Street at
2:57 PM and within 4 minutes had killed 8
people and wonded 6. He then is reported
to have killed himself. More of the story from the local newspaper
featured as the first disgruntled clients at deadlawyers.com - then there are some
of the clinton lawyers on the list - Paul
Wilcher, Vincent W. Foster, Jr, Ed Willey,
Gandy Baugh and Ron Brown - And lawyers don't seem to get it that a lot
of people hate lawyers.
A failed businessman Ferri did what others
only dream about doing. In 1993, the avenging
angel of all those screwed by lawyers, killed
eight and wounded six, as he rampaged through
the Pettit and Martin Law offices in San
Francisco. Fearing legal recourse, he turned
the gun on himself. On May 8, 1997, a San
Francisco judge dismissed a lawsuit against
Miami-based gun manufacturer Navegar Inc.,
saying the company wasn't responsible for
the July 1, 1993, Gian Luigi Ferri rampage
that left eight people dead. Superior Court
Judge James Warren ruled two years before
that victims and their survivors could try
to prove that the Miami-based Navegar Inc.
had designed the Intratec TEC-9 semi-automatic
pistol for mass killing and marketed it in
a way that would appeal to criminals. The Mass Murderer Hit List
People Don't Kill People - Guns Kill people
- lawyers say the TEC-9 is responsible
The lawyers need someone to blame. Ferri
is dead, so they go after the manufacture
of the gun. Will they go after the manufactures
of knives next - after all they "should
have known" that their product was dangerous.
And knives do not even have warning labels
that they could be dangerous. Wonder when
Boeing will be sued by the victims of US
cruse missiles.
California banned the TEC-9 by name in 1989.
In 1991, the District of Columbia passed
a law to hold makers of assault weapons strictly
liable if one of the weapons were used to
kill someone in D.C. In response, Intratec
renamed the gun "TEC-DC9" to evade
the law. Plaintiffs have appealed the ruling,
and the Court held oral argument on July
21, 1999. Dennis Henigan, the director of
the Legal Action Project, argued that Navegar
sold a weapon "designed to be spray-fired
from the hip" and "marketed as
an assault-type pistol," and urged the
court to find that Navegar owed a duty of
care that was violated by its negligent decision
"to sell a military-style weapon to
the general public." One of the three
judges on the panel agreed that the evidence
showed "no responsible user would have
any use for this weapon." The court
is expected to reach its decision within
3 months of the argument.
The Project represents Stephen Sposato, Michelle
Scully, and Carol Kingsley, the surviving
spouses of three of the people killed at
101 California. The Project also represents
Carol Ernsting, the mother of one of the
victims. The law firms of Morrison &
Foerster; Cotchett & Pitre; Jaffe, Trutanich,
Scatena & Blum; and Orrick, Herrington
& Sutcliffe are the Project's co-counsel
for these plaintiffs. LEGAL ACTION PROJECT - LITIGATION DOCKET August 1999
ASSAULT WEAPONS: THE CASE AGAINST THE TEC-9
By Frank M. Pitre, Cotchett, Pitre &
Simon
Burlingame, California
Intratec ads at the Violence Policy Center
Do Concealed Carry States Have Lower Rates
of Violent Crime?
The official San Francisco medical examiner's
report on Gian Luigi Ferri concludes he was
not on drugs when he killed eight people
in a high-rise at 101 California St. The
10-page report of the autopsy and toxicological
tests on Ferri, 55, was released this week.
Ferri died of a single gunshot wound to the
hard palate, according to the report. Toxicology
tests found no evidence Ferri was on drugs
or had any alcohol in his system during the
rampage. Ferri's body was cremated July 15.
[Published on 30 July 1993, SAN JOSE MERCURY
NEWS] ... more newspaper clippings from around the country - Boy would they have had a field day if drugs
were found.
Is the Legal Community really Against Violence
- or does it just want to control it's monopoly
on the use of Violence?
Legal Community Against Violence - "formed in the wake of the senseless
killing at 101 California Street on July
1, 1993, in which eight people were murdered
and six more wounded. ... dedicated to reducing
gun violence through legislation, litigation
and education.
From their stats ... The toll on our society
is staggering: In 1995 alone, 35,957 Americans
were killed with firearms, in homicides,
suicides and unintentional shootings. In
comparison, 33,651 Americans were killed
in the Korean War and 58,148 Americans were
killed in the Vietnam War. Notice that they omit the 2 million Vietnamese
killed by the US
More than 15 American children (ages 1-19)
were killed with firearms per day in 1993;
the average cost of treating a gunshot victim
in California was more than $25,883; and
the cost of direct medical care for gunshot
victims and fatalities was $703 million.
[Notice that they seem more concerned about
the cost here] Firearms now surpass automobiles as the
number one cause of injury-related deaths
in California. Lets get real - in 1996 there were 8,465 deaths in the
5-14 year old group - 2,002 from Motor vehicle
accidents, 513 from Homicide and legal intervention.
[source] In the 15-24 year old group, of the 32,699
deaths in 1996, 10,624 were from Motor vehicle
accidents while 6,548 were Homicide and legal
intervention. [source: disastercenter.com] And not all Homicides involved guns And what is "legal intervention" - is that when a
cop kills someone with a gun?
If the legal community were really against
violence they would be supporting antiwar.com
For those of you who missed it, there was
an anti-gun Rally on the West Steps of the
Capitol in Sacramento, California on Wednesday,
May 10, 1995. list of groups, corporations, and indiviuals who were supportive of this Rally.
... a 1994 poll of San Francisco alone showed
16 percent of the city's households had guns,
far below the state average of 41 percent.
-Shooting spree leads to sharper look at gun
laws
Gun dealer Bob Posner: "As soon as people
find out what I do, they immediately think
I'm a bad person." By RACHEL GORDON,
San Francisco Examiner Handguns in America October 19-22, 1997
"If you support gun control, here are
some resources you will find quite useful." - The Gun Control Page
Why progressives should
stop pushing for more
gun control laws
-- There are already thousands of them, too
many of which don't work. Every
ineffective law brings government into disrepute.
-- Prohibition of something that large numbers
of citizens want always fail,
witness the war on the drugs. It merely increases
the value of the prohibited
item and changes the distributors from honest
people to crooks.
-- Gun control laws are highly divisive to
no good end. Since they don't work
well, why get everyone so mad about them?
Progressives should instead start
finding issues that make people happy.
-- Treating gun laws as a national issue
exacerbates cultural conflict, such as
those between rural and urban, east and west,
wealthy and not so well off.
Telling rural Westerners to get rid of their
guns is like telling an urban
blacks to stop reading African-American books.
-- There is no evidence that members of the
NRA murder people at a higher rate
than non-members. It is insulting to gun
owners to speak as though they did.
-- The push for gun restrictions and prohibition
is interwoven with the drive
to restrict other citizen liberties and erode
democracy. Progressives once
opposed such moves, but in recent have been
no-shows. Progressives need to
became civil libertarians again.
-- America no longer has a strong, reliable
democracy. It has been deeply
corrupted and is being brutally manipulated.
We are also losing our major
defense against tyranny: the spirit and will
of the people. An armed citizenry
is a reasonable back-up plan.
-- People who drive around cities in four-wheel
drive SUVs shouldn't lecture
others on what safety precautions they should
take.
-- The strongest reason for the people to
retain their right to keep and bear
arms is as a last resort to protect themselves
against tyranny in government.
I didn't say that. Thomas Jefferson did.
-- Progressives should stop treating average
Americans as though they were
alien creatures. Progressives haven't just
lost elections because of their
issues but because of their attitudes as
well.
By Sam Smith
The Progressive Review
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