7 Gun Makers Sue Governments to Halt Their Pressure

Seven major gun makers filed suit Wednesday seeking to stop a growing movement by government officials to force changes in the design and sale of firearms.

The suit, filed in Atlanta federal court, accuses U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo and officials of 16 state and local governments--including several in California--of a conspiracy in restraint of trade against the firearm industry.

“An anti-gun agenda does not excuse anti-democratic behavior,” said Robert Delfay, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a Connecticut-based trade group that joined the gun makers as a plaintiff in the suit.

The suit seeks to block HUD and the state and local governments from giving preference in their purchases of police firearms to gun makers that adopt a groundbreaking code of conduct patterned after one signed last month by Smith & Wesson.

Under that accord, Smith & Wesson agreed to install trigger locks, develop “smart guns” that can only be fired by their owners, cut off shipments to dealers who refuse to toughen screening of buyers and institute dozens of other reforms. Negotiations are continuing on concerns raised by Smith & Wesson about some of the pact’s terms.

Cuomo, a leader in the effort to put economic pressure on other gun makers to embrace the code, dismissed the suit as an attempt by gun makers to “distract from their failure to take responsibility for their share of the tragic problem of gun violence.”

But the legal action raises the stakes in the battle over the preferential buying program being pushed by President Clinton and heightens gun makers’ visibility in the debate.

“Historically, the gun manufacturers have kept an extraordinarily low profile,” allowing gun owners--and the National Rifle Assn.--to lead the charge against government policies they oppose, said Franklin Zimring, a law professor at UC Berkeley and gun-policy expert.

But with the filing of their lawsuit, the gun manufacturers are presenting a united and aggressive new front in the gun control debate, he said.

The suit alleges that the preferential buying program infringes on Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce.

The suit said that a court order is needed to “prevent the defendants from unconstitutionally . . . misusing their governmental authority and collective purchasing power to impose their particular view on the rest of the nation.”

Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor specializing in constitutional law, said that state and local governments usually have prevailed in suits alleging violation of the commerce clause, provided that there is no discrimination against out-of-state businesses.

“Here, I think that the local governments are likely to say that [they] have an important interest in encouraging safer guns and that this outweighs any burden on interstate commerce,” he said.

San Francisco, Berkeley, Inglewood, Oakland, East Palo Alto and San Mateo County are among defendants in the suit. Los Angeles, though not named as a defendant, is considering using economic pressure to try to force more gun companies to adopt changes in their designs and sales of guns.

Cuomo is expected to announce today that the number of jurisdictions interested in joining the preferential purchasing program has grown to more than 100.

The plaintiffs, representing most of the major U.S. gun manufacturers, include Glock Inc. and Beretta USA Corp., which are major suppliers of weapons to law enforcement. The other gun makers joining in the suit are Browning Arms Inc.; Colt’s Manufacturing Co. Inc.; SIG Arms Inc.; Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc.; and Taurus International Manufacturing Inc.

New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer, who has helped lead the push for a code of conduct in his state and is named in the suit, said that the manufacturers might not know what they’re getting themselves into.

“We will see how unified they remain when their legal bills mount,” he said. “They are going to be met with a litigation counter-assault the likes of which they have never seen.”

In San Francisco, Owen Clements, the city attorney’s chief of special litigation, said that the city is simply doing what any consumer can do. “We certainly have a right as a market participant to choose who we’re going to do business with.”

Gun control advocates attacked the suit as “frivolous on its face.”

“I think it’s just absurd to contend that the Constitution somehow prohibits local governments from taking corporate responsibility into account in their procurement decisions,” said Dennis Henigan, legal director for the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.