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Gun smoke
BY DARYL LINDSEY | Lifting a page from the recent settlement scored by states against the tobacco industry, some of the cities hit hardest by gun violence are suing firearms manufacturers. Cities like Chicago, New Orleans, Miami and Bridgeport, Conn., grappling with the bleeding economic reality of gunshot wounds, want to recoup the costs of gun violence from weapons manufacturers. The past two months have seen that effort gain momentum. First, a jury in an important test case in Brooklyn held that gunmakers had acted negligently by flooding laxly regulated Southern states with weapons, despite knowledge these guns would, in all probability, get trafficked to Northeastern states with stricter gun laws. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, pointing to gun violence's disproportionate impact on blacks, says his organization may jump into the fray, either filing its own suit or signing on to the city cases. But the deep-pocketed pro-gun lobby is swiftly mobilizing its defense. National Rifle Association grass-roots efforts have already led to the introduction of legislation in Washington and 10 states that would prohibit local communities from suing gunmakers. NRA board member and gun enthusiast Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., proposed congressional legislation Tuesday that would curtail state and city lawsuits. Barr called the suits "a greed-driven attempt to abuse the courts, short circuit the legislative process and shut down law-abiding industries." Proposed Florida legislation would retroactively halt a lawsuit filed by Miami-Dade County and make it a felony for any local government official to file a gun suit. Georgia legislators have already passed a similar bill. Cities may be appropriating the states' tobacco litigation acumen, but don't expect to see anything as colossal as the $206 billion settlement last November between the tobacco industry and 46 states. Cashiers ring up $48 billion a year in cancer sticks, but only $1.4 billion worth of guns and ammo. But when you look at the economics, the injury the tobacco and gun industries inflict is comparable. The cost of treatment and lost productivity to smoke-related illnesses is greater than $100 billion a year. Meanwhile, the cost of treating gunshot wounds alone, not including productivity losses, is a staggering $112 billion a year. Salon recently discussed the gun suits with Tom Diaz, author of "Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America" and a senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, a non-partisan policy institute in Washington that battles gun violence. How does the recent wave of lawsuits by cities against gunmakers compare to the tobacco lawsuits brought by the states? The most striking similarities are that, like the tobacco industry, the firearms industry is not regulated for product health and safety. For consumers, litigation is the only recourse for recovering damages or preventing injury. The city lawsuits signal that, like the tobacco litigation, there is a strategy to hold the industry responsible for the costs it inflicts on the general population, but does not build into the costs of its products. If the gun industry had to underwrite medical and other costs, its products would cost a lot more. The Brooklyn case marks the first time a judge has allowed this legal theory to go forward and a jury has found that the industry has a duty higher than simply obeying the letter of the law. That duty includes taking care of how its products are distributed. It's an important development that will strengthen the cities' cases and give encouragement to municipalities and states to build on this legal theory and litigation. The industry's going to be finding itself facing these and other innovative legal theories. How do the gun suits differ from the tobacco cases? The gun industry is much smaller than the tobacco industry. Its pockets aren't as deep, and the potential for rewards isn't as sizable. Even if you bring in every collateral defendant you can think of -- like the industry associations -- you're not going to get anywhere near the tobacco products settlements. The industry also makes the point that if you use a cigarette precisely as intended -- if you smoke it -- that it's going to have bad effects. But they say a firearm is different, because if it's used as intended, no one will get hurt. That sounds persuasive, but not when you consider that the industry designs firearms that have almost exclusive utility as implements for shooting people and killing them. You can't just say this wasn't designed to kill somebody -- or, if it gets used to kill somebody, it's not our problem. That's really at the nub of some of these new theories. The industry says it's different from tobacco, but we say that when you take into account everything about the industry, including how it markets guns, how it designs guns, that that distinction doesn't exist.
N E X T+P A G E+| Why the cities are taking up the legal fight |
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