No doubt that headlines "N.Y. jury finds gun makers liable in shootings" raised ire, not only among the gun-faithful, but among the public at large. The poll at CNN Interactive registered nearly 89 percent of respondents as believing that gun manufacturers should not be held liable for harm caused by their products.
I was among that 89 percent. I'm not even a member of the National Rifle Association. In fact, I abhor the organization. But I thought that such a lawsuit was wildly absurd, even frivolous. Not since one woman filed suit against McDonald's for burns suffered from spilling hot coffee on herself (and more recently, another filed against Starbucks), have I been so offended by the American civil justice system.
All that was required for me to change my position, however, was a little more reading. The gun manufacturers were not being sued because their guns were faulty or did not have the proper safety devices. In this case, they weren't being sued for alleged crimes similar in any way to those of the tobacco companies. They were being taken to court because their business practices, which may be legal, are utterly unfaithful to the spirit of the law.
All may be fair in love and war, but that isn't necessarily so in gun distribution. Neighboring states and municipalities have different regulations and criteria restricting gun sales that may make it easier to peddle weapons in some states (North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, to name a few) than in others (New York, for example). A relatively protected market offers a lucrative opportunity, but only if the sellers can find some access-and where there is a will, there is a way.
Informal commerce between the states is relatively unrestricted: Any traveler can move goods across state lines without any problem at all. States employing tougher laws should expect that guns will diffuse into their states to some degree regardless of the strictness of the laws employed. Gun manufacturers and distributors, however, appear to be taking advantage of this fact by flooding the unrestricted markets and forcing a faster rate of diffusion from the firearm-friendly states to the more heavily protected states.
Recent studies, including one by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms estimated that the vast majority of weapons used in crimes were bought in states with extremely loose gun distribution laws. One study suggested that nearly 90 percent of weapons used in crimes in New York alone were bought somewhere else and transported across state lines.
Is this process illegal? It's the kind of issue that requires the expertise of a federal judge or somebody else with vast experience. I have absolutely no idea and I'm not about to pretend to be an expert.
There are a few things, however, I can say with relative authority. The first is that I sincerely doubt that elected officials representing their respective cities and states had intended guns to be distributed within their states in this manner. The second is that gun manufacturers are acting unethically by employing such tactics. They are abusing a natural process to get access to markets that are not legally accessible. They are undermining the strategies by which states and municipalities are trying to curb the incidence of gun violence.
A civil suit by individuals seems to be an odd way to combat this problem, even if it is the most accessible form of retribution. Legal action brought by cities and counties would seem to be a more appropriate venue, but even this venue of attack is slowly being sealed off-the NRA is having proposals introduced in state legislatures that would make the filing of such lawsuits by public officials a felony.
Ideally, I'd like to see business practices such as these become felonies and some of these executives sitting in a prison cell. But I also suppose that's a little too much to ask.
Jon Huntley is a Trinity junior and editorial page editor for The Chronicle.
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