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Bill to Shield Gun Makers Is Approved

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Times Staff Writer

Congress on Thursday sent President Bush a bill long sought by the National Rifle Assn. that shields gun makers and sellers from lawsuits arising from misuse of their weapons.

Bush supports the bill, and once he signs it, lawyers are expected to seek dismissal of about a dozen cases filed across the country against firearm makers by cities and crime victims -- including one arising out of the 1999 shooting at a San Fernando Valley Jewish community center.

Gun control groups vow to challenge the measure’s constitutionality.

The bill is the latest in a spate of measures that Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have pushed to remake the legal system.

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The gun legislation, which the House passed 283 to 144 Thursday and which passed the Senate 65 to 31 in July, was sparked by lawsuits filed in the late 1990s by several cities seeking to hold the firearm industry liable for gun violence. Gun rights advocates contended that the lawsuits -- which they say have cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees -- were intended to drive firearm makers out of business.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), called the lawsuits against the gun industry “nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to circumvent the legislative process and achieve gun control through litigation.”

Another of the bill’s backers, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), said, “One abusive lawsuit filed in a single county could destroy a national industry and deny citizens nationwide the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed” by the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment.

The bill’s opponents said it offered unprecedented immunity to a single industry.

“Why do we want to make the gun industry the most protected industry in America?” asked Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), whose husband was killed and son injured by a gunman on a Long Island train in 1993, said: “We are taking away the right of victims to be able to have their day in court.”

About 30 states have passed laws providing some legal protection for firearm makers and dealers, causing dismissal of some lawsuits filed against the industry.

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The federal legislation would provide “the full protection sought by the firearms industry” against such suits in any state, the National Shooting Sports Foundation said in a statement. The trade association represents firearm and ammunition manufacturers.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said the bill’s passage was aided by recent images in hurricane-stricken New Orleans of “citizens standing there alone when ... no police protection was available, defending their lives and their property with a firearm.”

The bill’s approval also was the latest sign of the political shift in Congress on gun issues. “It certainly is an important victory for the NRA ... that this one industry now has this kind of protection that no other industry has,” said Robert J. Spitzer, a political scientist at State University of New York at Cortland and author of “The Politics of Gun Control.”

Democrats championed gun control in the 1980s and 1990s, but some have since backed away from the issue as politically damaging. The 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers murdered 13 people before killing themselves, sparked gun control proposals in Congress, but the measures stalled.

Gun rights advocates say the political temperature for them has especially improved since the 2000 election. LaPierre said that year’s vote taught many lawmakers that “it’s bad politics to be on the wrong side of the 2nd Amendment.”

Many Democrats agreed that Al Gore, their party’s presidential candidate that year, lost crucial support in rural communities because he advocated gun control.

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Last year, Congress allowed a decade-old ban on assault weapons to expire.

In Thursday’s House vote, 59 Democrats and one independent joined 223 Republicans in supporting the legal protection bill.

Opposing the bill were 140 Democrats and four Republicans.

Bush praised the bill Thursday as a step toward reining in what he called frivolous suits that “cause a logjam in America’s courts, harm America’s small businesses, and benefit a handful of lawyers at the expense of victims and consumers.”

On Wednesday, the House approved a bill aimed at blocking lawsuits that seek to hold restaurants liable for a customer’s weight gain. The legislation faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. Bush earlier this year signed into law a bill limiting class-action lawsuits. And he is pressing Congress to limit medical malpractice awards.

Among cases that could be affected by the new gun legislation are ones brought by New York City; Cleveland; Gary, Ind.; and Washington against the firearms industry.

Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, the nonprofit organization that has been involved in the lawsuit stemming from the shootings at a Jewish community center in Granada Hills, vowed to vigorously challenge any effort by the gun industry to throw the case out of court.

In that case, victims of the shooting rampage by white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr. that killed one person and wounded five have sued Glock Inc. and China North Industries Corp., both gun makers. The suit alleges that the companies “negligently distributed their product and that they created a public nuisance,” said Horwitz.

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“This shameful law will not stand,” said Dennis Henigan, legal director at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. He is co-counsel in the New York City case filed against gun makers alleging that they have “contributed to a public nuisance ... by selling guns through dealers who are facilitating the trafficking of guns into the illegal market.” The case is scheduled to go trial next month.

If the legislation had been in effect last year, Henigan said, victims of the 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington area might not have been able to obtain a $2.5-million settlement last year from the company that made the Bushmaster rifle used in the crimes and the store that was the source of the firearm.

The bill’s sponsors said the measure would not preclude lawsuits against gun makers for a manufacturing defect or against dealers who sold weapons knowing they would be used to commit a crime.

But the Brady Center’s Henigan said the bill created unreasonable hurdles for the victims of gun crimes.

“To recover damages in a civil case, it generally is not required that the defendant violated any law, much less that he ‘knowingly’ violated a law. Instead, the standard is whether the defendant was negligent; that is, did he act with reasonable care?” he said.

Larry Pratt, executive director Gun Owners of America, expressed disappointment with a provision in the bill added by the Senate that would require handguns to be sold with trigger locks or other safety devices.

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The group had sent out an e-mail noting that while the legislation would not require that gun owners use trigger locks, “it is easy to see how trigger locks, like automobile seat belts or motorcycle helmets, can quickly become compulsory.”

NRA officials downplayed the requirement, saying most handguns were now sold with trigger locks.

The NRA scuttled the bill last year in the Senate after gun-control advocates attached amendments that would have extended the federal ban on assault weapons and tightened background checks for sales at gun shows. But the 2004 election resulted in a net gain of four senators supporting the bill, paving the way for its passage in the chamber this year.

Among California’s House delegation, all Republicans voted for the bill, while most Democrats opposed it. The Democrats who voted for it were Joe Baca of Rialto, Dennis Cardoza of Atwater, Jim Costa of Fresno, Loretta Sanchez of Santa Ana and Mike Thompson of St. Helena.

Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-East Los Angeles) did not vote.

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