Gun manufacture

Should gun manufacturers be held liable if they market or distribute their products in a way that makes it easy for criminals to get them ... 

Faced with a protracted struggle in the political arena, some gun control activists launched a new offensive in the late 1990s by filing liability suits against gun manufacturers. Suing the shooter is a possibility, of course, but most criminals have little in the way of recoverable assets. 

Gun rights advocates, however, see such efforts as an attempt to stretch reasonable concepts of liability into a form of backdoor gun control, in effect obtaining through the courts what they could not obtain through political means. They argue that if such suits are widely successful, gun manufacturers may be forced out of business, or at least forced to market only expensive handguns, affordable only by the well-off and by criminals. Thus, in a law journal article, Philip D. Oliver warns that... 

Gun manufacturer Kelley v. R.G. Industries, Inc. Perkins v. RLE. Corp. Dix v. Beretta Hamilton v. Accu-Tek City of Cincinnati v. Beretta USA Corporation... 

The district court rejected both the strict product liability and the ultrahazardous activity theory in Perkins s suit and granted summary judgment in favor of the gun manufacturer. In a similar case, Richman v. Charter Arms Corp. (involving a robbery, rape, and murder committed using a. 38 caliber handgun), the court granted summary judgment to the defendant on product liability but not on ultrahazardous activity. The two cases were then combined in an appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth District. 

Several lawsuits were filed on behalf of the victims against Colt Industries (manufacturer of the gun) and Olin Corporation (maker of the ammunition), and other gun manufacturers. Colt and Olin filed to have the suit dismissed for lack of a valid cause of action, and the district court agreed. The plaintiffs appealed. 

The court also agreed with gun manufacturers who complained that the law gave no idea of what slight modifications of the named weapons would cause them to also be banned, such as a faster trigger pull, different ammunition capacity, or different caliber of ammunition. The court declared the Columbus law to be invalid on its face. ... 

This case is a challenge to a Connecticut assault weapons ban brought by DeForest H. Benjamin and a variety of other plaintiffs, including a gun manufacturer called Navegar, which was doing business as Intratec. The ban involved both a list of specific weapons (such as the AK-47) as well as specifying similar weapons such as AK-47-type guns. The trial and appeals courts rejected the suit, which was then appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court. 

The plaintiffs argued that the gun manufacturers deliberately marketed their products in a way that they should have known increased the danger that the guns would be misused, leading to injuries or deaths. For example, they charged, an effort was made to sell more guns in areas in the southern states that had weak gun control laws they said that the manufacturers should have known that such guns were more likely to get into the black market and thus into the hands of criminals in urban areas such as New York City. 

As of late 2004 the situation with regard to negligent marketing claims remains mixed. More than two dozen cities have filed suits against gun manufacturers or distributors on this or other grounds about half of the suits were dismissed before trial. In March 2000 Smith Wesson (a major... 

The Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen, a group of gun clubs, as well as some gun manufacturers and dealers, sued the governor of New Jersey to overturn the state s ban on assault weapons. This law specified particular makes and models of semiautomatic weapons that could no longer be possessed, but guns that were substantially identical to the listed guns could also be banned. (This was an attempt to prevent manufacturers from simply changing model names or making minor cosmetic modifications in order to get around the ban.)... 

There are many conflicting opinions in state courts regarding suits against gun manufacturers. In Spitzer v. Sturm, Ruger Co. (2003) the New York Supreme Court rejected a similar public nuisance claim. The court noted that firearms were already heavily regulated and that legislatures were much more suited than courts to deal with the problems caused by guns. 

June 21 New %rk becomes the first state to sue gun manufacturers, based on a new state law that declares illegal guns to be a public nuisance. More than 30 cities and counties are already suing gun makers under a negligence theory. 

April A New York appeals court overturns a verdict against three gun manufacturers for negligent marketing. The court cites the fact that the guns were not defective and were already heavily regulated by law. 

June The Ohio Supreme Court allows a suit against 15 gun manufacturers to proceed. Overturning a lower court decision, it accepts the city s claim that gun marketing practices created a substantial danger by making guns too easily available to criminals and children. 

September California becomes the first state to repeal a law granting gun manufacturers immunity from lawsuits. 

July 22 A lawsuit charging that the killing of a disproportionate number of blacks by illegal guns was the responsibility of gun manufacturers is dismissed by a New York federal court. 

March 2 A bill to shield gun manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits is overwhelmingly defeated in the Senate. The Republicans had withdrawn their support for the bill after Democrats had succeeded in adding amendments that would renew the ban on assault weapons, require child safety locks on all handguns, and require background checks on gun purchases at gun shows. 

Violence Policy Center. Firearms Production in America. 2002 Edition. Washington, D.C. Violence Policy Center, 2002. Also available online. URL http //www.vpc.org/graphics/prod2002.pdf. Posted in March 2003. A comprehensive listing of U.S. gun manufacturers who are currently active according to Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco, and Eirearms records. The list includes the weapons produced by each manufacmrer by caliber, and the number of each produced. 

Cohen, Adam. When There s Smoke. Time, vol. 153, February 22, 1999, p. 65. Describes the results of a Brooklyn, New York, lawsuit that found some gun makers liable for shootings. Plaintiffs hailed the decision as a breakthrough in holding the gun manufacturers liable, although defendants pointed to the fact the jury cleared 10 of 25 defendants and found... 

Several readers have requested that we include legal comments with weapons articles. Any weapon you can name is illegal somewhere in this country. As responsible journalists, we would never suggest,Infer, or recommend that you break the law. All weapons in the PMA can be legally built and owned. Many of them do require special federal, state or local licenses/permits. This publication is read in several countries and by every type of individual from anti-gun watchdogs to professional machine gun manufacturers and dealers. It s pointless for us to belabor every possible legal aspect of every weapon covered. 

Therefore the adhesives suppliers work together with the spray guns manufacturers in order to adapt the adhesives to the guns and the guns to the adhesives. 

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