Handgun Industry Faces 2 More Lawsuits

Miami-Dade County, Fla., and Bridgeport, Conn., on Wednesday filed damage suits against the handgun industry, joining a mounting legal campaign by the nation’s big cities to hold firearms makers responsible for law enforcement and other costs of responding to gun crimes and accidental shootings.

The anti-gun suits were the first since New Orleans and Chicago filed last fall. However, gun litigation is a major topic of discussion this week at a Washington meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and a number of cities have said they too will enter the fray.

One of them, Los Angeles, on Wednesday became the first city in California to prohibit the sale to an individual of more than one handgun a month. The ordinance passed by the City Council is aimed at “straw” purchasers who legally buy large numbers of firearms and sell them to criminals and minors.

Jack Adkins, director of operations for the American Shooting Sports Council, an Atlanta-based gun manufacturers group, denounced the latest lawsuits as a “crass attempt to set new public policy through the courthouse rather than the statehouse.” Along with gun-rights advocates, the group plans to support legislation in various states to restrict or preempt anti-gun suits by the cities.

Gun makers are fighting back in other ways, too. The industry has told New Orleans that it is moving its big annual trade show from that city next winter to Las Vegas. The event, known as the SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade) show, draws thousands of gun manufacturers, distributors and retailers each year.

With the ’99 SHOT show set for next week in Atlanta, gun industry officials were outraged by Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell’s recent announcement that he too intends to file an anti-gun suit. It was too late for the industry show to move, but Campbell sought to pacify industry sponsors last week with a letter stating that he had “not meant to embarrass you or your organization” and hoped “you will have a successful convention.”

In the letter, Campbell also promised not to serve papers on any exhibitors or attendees during the show.

The Miami-Dade suit, which seeks unspecified damages against 26 gun manufacturers and three trade groups, is the narrower of the two new claims. Following the same path as the one filed in New Orleans, the suit accuses gun makers of failing to incorporate safety features--particularly personalized or “smart” gun technology that could prevent guns from being fired by children or other unauthorized persons.

In announcing the suit, Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas said that “despite industry rhetoric, the fact is that guns do kill people. They have killed our children by the hundreds. And the real tragedy is that those deaths could have been prevented.”

The more wide-ranging Bridgeport suit accuses gun makers of failing to incorporate safety features and of failing to control marketing and distribution practices, thereby abetting the flow of guns into the criminal market. The claim is similar to the one filed by Chicago and asserted in a trailblazing case in its fourth week of trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. That private case, filed in 1995 and called Hamilton vs. Accu-Tek, seeks a finding of collective liability against the industry for allegedly flooding the market with more handguns than could possibly be absorbed by legal buyers--knowing that tens of thousands would quickly find their way to youth gang members and crooks.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein dismissed 15 gun distributors from the case, although 30 manufacturers are still defendants.

* NEW CITY LAW

In L.A., sales are limited to one handgun a person a month. B1