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| TARGETING THE GUN INDUSTRY | |
 December 23, 1998 
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Chicago and other cities are taking gun dealers and manufacturers to court in an effort to reduce crime and recover costs resulting from gun-related violence. |
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Next, big city mayors going to court to reduce the sale of handguns. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago reports.
HEALTH CARE WORKERS: Have you ever been shot before? ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Gunshot wounds are common. Close to 1,000 gunshot victims a year are treated here. In the intensive care just off the emergency room half of the 12 beds are usually filled by gunshot victims fighting for their lives. The daily carnage angers intensive care nurse Kelly Flynn. |
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| An epidemic of gun violence. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley agrees. He says it's time to make the gun industry responsible for the damage from guns. This fall the mayor filed a $433 million lawsuit against 22 gun manufacturers, 12 gun shop owners, and four gun distributors. RICHARD M. DALEY, Mayor, Chicago: We have filed ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Chicago became the second major city in the country to sue the gun manufacturers. New Orleans filed suit against the gun manufacturers earlier this fall. Both lawsuits are part of a national legal strategy crafted in part by the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. Dennis Henigan is the center's legal director.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The gun industry says the lawsuits are just one more attempt by anti-gun groups to drive them out of business. Robert Ricker directs the Government Affairs Department for the American Shooting Sports Council. |
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| Standing their ground. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The lawsuit in New Orleans, a city with one of the highest homicide rates in the country, is based on product liability law, the same legal concept used in the lawsuits against the tobacco industry. The New Orleans gun suit charges that the gun manufacturers make an unsafe product because of the failure to incorporate safety devices. The Chicago case uses different legal grounds. MAYOR RICHARD DALEY: This is a public nuisance case and the first ever. We hope that it will force the gun industry to come to terms with millions of Americans directly or indirectly affected by gun violence. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: University of Chicago Law Professor Alan Sykes gives the city points for creativity but says using public nuisance law to sue the gun industry us a shaky legal strategy, especially when applied to gun manufacturers. ALAN SYKES, University of Chicago: Going after the manufacturers, the
theory there is that the manufacturers have an obligation to police
local gun dealers to make sure that they don't do anything at odds with
the letter or the ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Chicago already has one of the toughest anti-gun ordinances in the country. Handguns are essentially banned in Chicago. Yet, the mayor says thousands of illegal guns continue to come into the city. He charges the manufacturers, distributors and sellers with creating a public nuisance by flooding gun shops just outside the city limits with guns they know will be used illegally in Chicago. Chicago based its case in part on a three-month undercover operation by the Chicago Police Department. This police tape shows officers posing as gang members with Chicago addresses, buying guns in gun shops just outside the city limits. Chicago police superintendent Terry Hillard. |
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| Undercover investigation. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Valentin Rivera owns the gun shop shown in the police tape. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: What the city is basically saying is that you're knowingly selling guns to people you know are probably going to use them illegally.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Still, none of the 12 gun shops targeted by the undercover operation turned the officers' requests for guns down. That led to an impressive haul of lethal weapons, prominently displayed at the news conference. But Rivera, a former police officer, says as long as customers have a firearm owner's identification card or FOID card required to purchase a gun in Illinois, and sign a federal form saying the gun is for their own use, he is obligated to sell them a gun. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: While the common perception is that most guns used
in crimes are stolen, a recent survey of prison inmates by the Criminal
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| A weak case? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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PETER BUSTAMENTE, Lawyer: My clients are engaged in lawful commerce.
I understand that the other ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The industry has not yet come up with a coordinated legal strategy to respond to the lawsuits. Chicago's gun shop owners do not even know if they will share attorneys or legal expenses. But the industry says it will fight back. ROBERT RICKER: The individual companies and shop - I mean - I've spoken
to gun shop owners and to - to companies from the smallest companies
to the largest companies - and I think they're all in agreement that
- that we don't have the big bucks that the tobacco companies did, and
basically I think the tobacco industry bought themselves out of a difficult
situation. We don't have the - ELIZABETH BRACKETT: And the battleground may soon expand. Dade County, Florida, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are also considering filing suit against the gun industry. |
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ELIZABETH
BRACKETT: The trauma center at Chicago's Cook County Hospital is a busy
place. 
KELLY
FLYNN, Cook County Hospital: Somebody has to take responsibility for
all of this. I mean, obviously we can't keep guns off the street, but
where are they getting them from? They have to be made somewhere, and
the responsibility has to be put on someone because it's not just criminals
that are getting shot up, you know. It's police, it's innocent victims,
it's children. 
a
lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court aimed at gun dealers and the manufacturers
to hold them accountable for the cost to society stemming directly from
their irresponsible business practices. We hold polluters accountable
for poisoning the environment. We hold the liquor stores accountable
for selling to minors. It is time to hold the gun industry accountable
for the direct cost imposed upon us. 
DENNIS
HENIGAN, Center to Prevent Handgun Violence: These are civil damages
suits, also seeking injunctive relief. It means that these cities are
suing the gun industry to actually recover damages from the industry,
to compensate the cities for the cots to the public treasury of gun
violence resulting from the industry's own conduct. 
ROBERT
RICKER, American Shooting Sports Council: For years they've tried -
they've tried to drive our companies out of business through legislation,
through many different legislative campaigns, both at the state level
and at the federal level. And they've been unsuccessful, and I think
now they're frustrated at the lack of success they've had in the legislatures.
And now they're turning to the courts. 
spirit
of the local gun control system. And that's a tall order to ask manufacturers
to do that. We don't ask Sealtest to make sure that the grocery store
doesn't sell too much ice cream to someone who's obese and might have
a heart attack; we don't ask - we don't ask Jack Daniels to make sure
that its bourbon isn't sold to alcoholics by liquor store owners who
can see somebody has had too much through the years. 
TERRY
HILLARD, Chicago Police Superintendent: During this investigation my
officers told these gun dealers they were members of street gangs, they
told them that they were having problems with rival gangs; they told
them that they needed weapons to settle their business, and the gun
dealers were only too happy to help. 
VALENTIN
RIVERA, Gun Shop Owner: No. That's impossible. How are we to know that?
That is impossible. I cannot read minds. I don't know what his intentions
are, so that's impossible. 
Research
Center found that only 27 percent of the inmates said the guns they
used were stolen, while 67 percent said they had bought the guns or
gotten them from family or friends, all the more reason the city says
to go after the gun industry's pocket book. The lawsuit asks for an
injunction blocking sales from gun shops where there is evidence that
the guns will be used illegally in Chicago. The injunction also seeks
to block manufacturers from shipping large quantities of guns for sale
just outside Chicago. Valentin Rivera's attorney says the case is weak.
defendants,
the gun manufacturers, are also engaged in lawful commerce. It is improper
for the City of Chicago to try to stop a lawful activity that generates
income for families and for business people. With respect to the moral
issue, I think that they're - what the city is trying to do - it is
trying to take care of a large social problem with this lawsuit. And
that is impossible. 
the
wherewithal economically to do that, so we're going to have to fight.