L.A. to Sue Gun Makers in Bid to Curb Violence
Los Angeles and San Francisco will file lawsuits against the handgun industry today, joining other cities’ attempts to use the courtroom as a tool for gun control.
As with suits filed by Miami, Chicago, New Orleans and other cities, the California actions are intended to financially pressure gun makers to better control sales and add safety features to firearms, said Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn, who will file the Los Angeles lawsuit.
Gun rights advocates have claimed that such lawsuits are an attempt to put manufacturers out of business and disarm Americans.
Representatives of the National Rifle Assn. and other firearms rights advocates were not available for comment.
The Los Angeles suit will name as defendants more than 40 gun manufacturers, as well as gun dealers and firearms trade groups. Hahn said the lawsuit targets manufacturers that operate with “deliberate indifference” to gun violence. “Their attitude is hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,” he said.
Though part of a national spate of lawsuits against the gun industry, the Los Angeles and San Francisco suits take a novel legal approach.
Other cities are attempting to hold gun makers liable for damages caused by firearms used in crimes and are based on product liability laws. Those suits seek monetary damages for costs such as police deployment and medical expenses stemming from gun crimes and accidents.
The Los Angeles and San Francisco suits rely on state public nuisance and unfair business practice laws. Hahn said that gun firms have flouted those laws, which forbid “substantially injurious” businesses, by exercising little control over distributors and dealers, and failing to install safety devices on guns.
The legal basis for the suits matches lawsuits that San Francisco, Los Angeles and other California cities filed against tobacco firms in 1996.
Unlike product liability suits seeking a specific amount in damages, the gun industry faces civil penalties and the confiscation of profits if the California cities prevail in their lawsuits. Although Los Angeles is not after a set amount of damages, firms could face penalties for every injury or death caused by an accidental discharge or unauthorized sale. “This is a pretty big stick,” Hahn said.
But the real objective of the suit, Hahn said, is “more about changing the way they do business than money.”
Hahn said gun manufacturers have little involvement with their dealers and need to do more to prevent illegal gun sales, such as those to minors and criminals. Gun makers, Hahn said, tolerate a lax distribution system in which “a [firearms dealer] license holder could be someone in a skid row hotel or a mom at a kitchen table. There’s no storefront required. If you’re selling a product with your name, you ought to care how it is sold,” Hahn said.
The Los Angeles suit also claims that gun firms failed to install safety features in guns that would prevent intentional and accidental shootings. Hahn said gun makers are capable of producing “smart” firearms that could be fired only by their legitimate owner or with devices that would prevent accidental firing, such as a mechanism to disable a gun if the magazine is removed.
Hahn said that the lawsuits grew out of several months of collaboration with San Francisco City Atty. Louise Renne and that other California cities may soon file their own suits.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will today consider a similar suit. Hahn said Inglewood and Compton are considering lawsuits. Sacramento has joined San Francisco’s suit.
“This will be an effort that unites localities statewide,” said Marc Slavin, a spokesman for the San Francisco city attorney’s office.
Hahn and other local officials say their suits stem from widespread deaths and injuries caused by guns. California is one of a few states in which more people die from gunshots than auto accidents.
In Los Angeles, 13,000 crimes were committed with guns last year, and the LAPD seized more than 6,000 guns related to crimes. In 1997, 1,835 homicides were committed with guns in California, 481 of them in Los Angeles. More than 25,000 serious injuries were linked to gun use that year.
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