here we go Again

[Sushi X]

California's Governor Signs Series of Anti-Gun Measures
By JOHN M. BRODER


OS ANGELES, Sept. 25 — Gov. Gray Davis signed a series of gun measures today, including a bill to repeal the special immunity from liability suits granted to the firearms industry nearly 20 years ago.

California, which was one of the first states to give weapons makers protection from lawsuits, now becomes the first state to lift that immunity. In the last five years, more than two dozen states have granted the gun industry immunity from suits filed by cities and counties seeking damages to cover the costs of combating gun violence.

Gun-control advocates who pushed the California bills hailed today's action as a significant victory over the well-financed gun lobby.

"This is a legal earthquake for irresponsible gun manufacturers," said Luis Tolley of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "They will no longer be able to hide from the courts and escape legal accountability when they engage in dangerous and irresponsible conduct that hurts and kills people."

California is clearly bucking a trend in which 29 states have acted to throttle a spate of government lawsuits against gun makers. A bill before Congress to grant the industry blanket immunity from such suits has 228 sponsors in the House and 41 in the Senate, industry officials say.

Governor Davis urged Congress to reject those bills as bad policy and an unwarranted shield for irresponsible gun makers and sellers.

"These federal bills are intended to pre-empt laws like the ones I'm signing today and to take us right back to square one," Mr. Davis said. "They ensure that the gun manufacturers remain accountable to no one."

A lawyer for gun manufacturers said the California legislation would result in a torrent of litigation intended to harass and bankrupt the industry.

"The California Legislature has opened a Pandora's box, and courts in California will now be flooded with suits designed to hold manufacturers of legal, highly regulated nondefective products responsible for criminal shootings," said Lawrence G. Keane, general counsel of the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, the trade group for the gun industry.

Twelve California cities and counties have joined in a lawsuit against the gun industry seeking to recover the costs of investigating gun crimes and treating the victims of gun violence. Trial is scheduled for April.

Mr. Davis signed several other gun-related bills today. One gives city attorneys access to federal gun-sales records. Another authorizes the Department of Justice to test handgun models each year to determine whether they meet state safety standards. A third prohibits the sale of safety locks that are not approved in the state and a fourth requires arms makers to obtain certification from the Department of Justice that the recipient is an authorized dealer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

when will the attack on the gun industry stop. when will people learn that it's not the industry's fault for the violence but rather those who commit the crimes? when will people infornce existing laws instead of looking for more or taking the easy way out?

 

[Sushi X]

makes me glad i just got a 3 year membership to the NRA.

 

[fogg88]

This is great news! ( )

Now maybe they'll revoke the immunity given to the egg and toilet paper industries. That way I can sue 'em after the neighborhood kids mess with my house.

 

[Sushi X]

pesky trick or treaters. don't ya hate when they do that?

 

[Sushi X]

some more news dealing with the above article:

Letter Is Crucial in Lawsuit on Liability of Gun Makers
By FOX BUTTERFIELD


letter from a federal firearms agent urging a gun manufacturer to help track the illegal use of its weapons has become crucial evidence in a lawsuit by 12 California cities and counties against the gun industry.

The letter, sent in 2000, suggested that Taurus International Manufacturing, of Miami, install a government computer to help determine whether dealers are helping criminals obtain firearms.

"If your corporation determines that there is an unusually high number of Taurus firearms being traced to certain" wholesalers and dealers, "we suggest that you look at their business practices more carefully," the letter said.

It was written by Forest G. Webb, a special agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in charge of its National Tracing Center, an agency that tracks guns recovered in crimes.

Taurus never acted on Mr. Webb's advice.

Yet the letter, and Taurus's inaction, have emerged as major issues in the first lawsuit to reach the trial stage among 30 filed against gun companies by cities and counties around the nation. The plaintiffs include the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and the trial is to begin next spring in San Diego.

The letter was uncovered in the discovery phase of the case. Some of the documents and depositions produced in discovery were made available to The New York Times through court records and by the plaintiffs.

The central contention of the California cities is that the gun industry maintains a distribution system that allows many guns to fall into the hands of criminals and juveniles, creating a public nuisance and violating state law on unfair business practices.

"One of the ways the companies do this is to basically sell to anyone with a federal firearms license," said Dennis Henigan, the legal director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and a co-counsel in the California suits. "They sell guns without getting any information from the distributors or dealers about the number of guns they sell that end up being used in crimes, or when customers make multiple purchases of guns, both tip-offs to problems."

Studies by the firearms bureau have shown that about 1 percent of dealers account for about half of all guns used in crimes, meaning that a few dealers appear to be responsible for selling thousands of guns to criminals.

Gun makers are not legally obligated to monitor their distributors.

But, Mr. Henigan said, federal courts have ruled that when a manufacturer of a dangerous product knows that its sellers are engaged in hazardous practices, the manufacturer may be held liable. For example, makers of toxic chemicals have been held liable for selling barrels of their products to companies they knew were not doing enough to prevent leakage into the ground.

The cities also say they believe the gun makers could use information from the firearms bureau's tracing of guns used in crimes to identify dealers who sell a disproportionate number of those guns, and stop selling to them.

The suit is based on a novel legal theory, and the gun industry has a long record of winning cases.

Lawrence G. Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade association, dismissed the letter.

"I am not concerned about any document that is going to come out," Mr. Keane said. "There is nothing that the firearms industry is trying to hide."

The gun makers are "complying with an extensive regulatory scheme" by selling only to distributors and dealers with federal firearms licenses, Mr. Keane said. As a result, the manufacturers have no responsibility to monitor what those dealers do with their guns, he said, and "it is absurd to suggest that if criminals get their hands on guns the companies should be held responsible."

One crucial question is whether the cities' contention that the gun makers do not check on their dealers — a pattern of inaction — will be as powerful as some evidence of overt action by the gun manufacturers would be. The case will be decided by a judge, Vincent DiFiglia, of San Diego Superior Court, rather than a jury.

Richard Abel, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles, said, "Inaction makes the claim more difficult, but it does not foreclose it."

In torts, Professor Abel said, there is a distinction between misfeasance and nonfeasance, between doing and not doing. Most lawsuits involve some action, he said, "but there are whole categories of situations in which doing nothing can be the basis of a claim."

In the discovery phase of the lawsuit, executives of a number of gun makers have testified that they never check what happens to their guns, Mr. Henigan said. "They make no effort to identify problem dealers, because they want to remain blind so they can deny they know what has happened to their guns," he said.

Paul Januzzo, the general counsel for Glock Inc., of Smyrna, Ga., said in a deposition that Glock had never analyzed firearms bureau data for its guns recovered in crimes. "There would be no reason to," Mr. Januzzo said. "It wouldn't tell us anything."

Robert Morrison, an executive vice president of Taurus, said in a deposition that after reading in a bureau report that one of his company's handguns was among the 10 most often used in crimes, he did nothing to get the Taurus product off the list. The only thing he did, Mr. Morrison said, was wonder how the bureau classified guns as crime guns.

"I wonder if they found them in the bushes or under a car," Mr. Morrison said he thought.

Mr. Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation said the firearms bureau had repeatedly told the gun makers not to check the tracing information on crime guns because "law enforcement does not want the manufacturers to play junior G-men and jeopardize investigations."

But Mr. Henigan responded that in depositions, no gun company executive could pinpoint any such bureau directive. "This is a myth they have created that they hide behind," he said.