Using Buying Power to Trigger Gun Reform

The city of Los Angeles and other governments throughout the nation wield enormous purchasing power, just the kind of clout that could influence the firearms industry to make weapons safer and more difficult to obtain by criminals and minors.

Here’s how it would work: Smith & Wesson, the nation’s largest manufacturer of handguns, agreed recently to an impressive list of demands by governments (including Los Angeles) suing the firearm industry for irresponsible design and marketing practices that contribute to needless gun violence. Nearly 30,000 people are killed and 100,000 injured each year by guns in the United States, far more than in any other industrial nation.

Under the agreement, Smith & Wesson must immediately include external trigger locks with all guns, and internal locks within two years; make guns difficult for young children to fire easily; imprint a second, hidden serial number on guns to deter theft and to assist in tracing; and test-fire all guns to record their ballistic “fingerprints,” enabling them to be identified later from bullets and shell casings found at crime scenes.

The company also must develop “smart gun” technology that prevents anyone but an authorized user from firing a gun. In Los Angeles, my office is assembling a task force to decide on a deadline by which such technology must be built into all handguns sold in the city.

The national settlement also requires Smith & Wesson guns to have indicators to show if a gun is loaded, and a mechanism to prevent the gun from firing without the magazine fully inserted. The company also must sell firearms only to authorized dealers who abide by stringent controls including electronic inventory tracking. Finally, the gun maker must require that dealers at gun shows do background checks on prospective buyers.

Smith & Wesson demonstrated leadership and good business sense by agreeing to these reasonable terms, but so far it stands alone. The other gun makers named in the lawsuit remain defiant--unwilling to change their ways even if doing so might save lives. Moreover, the National Rifle Assn. supports their intransigence, condemning the settlement not because of objections to its content, but out of the belief that compliance with responsible design and manufacturing practices should be a matter of choice.

Thanks to this landmark settlement with Smith & Wesson, however, government agencies across the country now have a chance to use their collective economic leverage to sway other major manufacturers.

Law enforcement agencies buy up to 30% of the handguns sold each year in the United States. Were those agencies to buy firearms only from Smith & Wesson or other companies that agree to similar settlement terms, errant manufacturers such as Beretta, Browning, Colt’s and Glock could be forced into line.

That’s why I introduced legislation to create a preferred buying program in Los Angeles. The motion asks for a report from the Police Department and other city agencies that employ armed personnel on the cost and feasibility of purchasing sidearms for our officers and guards only from Smith & Wesson or future settlement signatories.

Officials in dozens of local and state governments around the country last week also proposed such policies, and City Attorney James Hahn has called on the other municipal plaintiffs in California to do the same thing.

The market impact of coordinated government purchasing could be enormous, and establishing a preferred buying program in Los Angeles should be a high priority.

The LAPD currently issues Beretta 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistols to new recruits, but the department maintains a list of other approved handguns for use by officers both on and off duty. The list includes several models by Smith & Wesson, whose products are generally considered of excellent quality. In fact, the company makes the only .45-caliber pistols approved by the LAPD.

We must always equip our officers with the best firearms available. Switching from Beretta to Smith & Wesson (unless Beretta chooses to join the settlement) won’t require a compromise, according to gun experts. It may entail some extra inventory and training costs, but they’ll likely be negligible compared to the benefit of reform by gun manufacturers that will make all of us safer.

Indeed, the agreement with Smith & Wesson could be a turning point for public safety in America, and is reminiscent of changes years ago in another industry. It took decades of government regulation and hard-fought lawsuits to force auto makers to build safer cars. Features such as safety glass, seat belts and air bags now save thousands of lives each year, but most consumers take them for granted.

Lawsuits and legislation aimed at the gun industry today will produce a very similar outcome. Years from now, we’ll look back at the gun violence statistics of today with disbelief, and be grateful that the gun industry was forced to design and market its products more responsibly.