Gun Foes Take Aim at Courts in Latest Anti-Firearm Salvo

Gun-control advocates are stepping up their fire by employing a new weapon--civil suits--in their battle to curb illegal or irresponsible sales of firearms.

After years of struggling against powerful opposition in Congress and state legislatures, proponents of stricter gun-control laws have turned to the courts with a wide range of suits seeking to hold the providers of weapons financially accountable for gun-related deaths and injuries.

In Virginia Beach, Va., the family of a schoolteacher killed during a shooting rampage by a 15-year-old boy is suing a gun dealer for selling a semiautomatic handgun to a stand-in purchaser for the youth.

In Fulton County, Ga., a pawnshop is facing litigation for allegedly failing to check the background of a convicted felon and ex-mental patient who later shot a woman to death.

The approach has yielded some notable gains.

A Pennsylvania jury, returning an $11-million award to a woman accidentally shot in the head, held the gun dealer partly responsible for failing to instruct the purchaser on the weapon’s safe use.

In New York, a widow received a $2.4-million verdict against a store that sold a shotgun to a drunken customer who shot her husband, paralyzing him for the remainder of his life.

And, earlier this month, a San Leandro gun dealer agreed to pay $400,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the widow of a man slain on a freeway with an AK-47 assault rifle purchased from the store in 1988.

“We’re hopeful that this sends a loud and clear message that you have to obey the law and use reasonable care when you sell the weapons of death,” says Roger W. Patton of Oakland, an attorney for the victim’s widow, Sharon Ellingsen.

BACKGROUND: The push in the courts is a new approach for gun-control advocates. For years, proposals to restrict access to handguns and other firearms have made little headway against determined and well-financed opposition in the halls of Congress and state legislatures.

So far, most successful lawsuits have alleged negligence on the part of the defendants--in the San Leandro case, for failing to obtain identification from the actual purchaser of the weapon, a federal requirement.

Although gun-control advocates have won some notable victories--such as California’s 1989 law banning the sale of assault weapons--the legislative road to such restrictions has not been easy.

Handguns alone account for over 22,000 homicides, suicides and fatal accidents annually in the United States. An additional 100,000 people are wounded.

THE CROSS-FIRE: Gun foes see negligence suits as a formidable deterrent to improper sales--particularly instances in which guns are knowingly sold to stand-ins for minors, felons and other ineligible buyers.

“This provides dealers with a substantial financial incentive to be very, very careful,” says Dennis A. Henigan, who is director of the Legal Action Project of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, which aids in such suits.

“The costs to society of handguns far outweigh their benefits to society,” Carl T. Bogus, a Philadelphia attorney specializing in gun-control issues, argues. In one recent three-year period, he noted, there were 69,000 deaths from handguns, but less than 1% were ruled justifiable homicides.

THE OUTLOOK: More legal battles, and the possibility of a dramatic expansion of liability for those who sell and manufacture firearms.

Bogus and some other experts are urging the courts to widen substantially the potential legal vulnerability of manufacturers and dealers by holding them strictly liable for selling unreasonably hazardous products, regardless of fault or negligence. Under this theory, gun makers would be held accountable much as the makers of asbestos have been held liable for asbestos-related deaths.

Opponents of greater gun control are resisting the move to hold manufacturers responsible for gun-related death and injury, arguing that the issue is one of social policy that should be left to the legislative branch.

Richard Gardiner, director of state and local affairs for the National Rifle Assn., welcomes the reluctance of the courts thus far to expand liability. “The courts have recognized very quickly that what’s going on here is an effort to use the judiciary to impose a firearms ban that the legislatures have refused to impose,” he says.

Imposing strict liability would have “severe consequences,” said Gardiner, bringing a virtual end to the making of firearms.