Online NewsHour: Targeting the Gun Industry, December 23, 1998



	TARGETING THE GUN INDUSTRY

December 23, 1998

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.

Dec. 12, 1998:
Fighting youth violence in Boston.

April 6, 1998:
President Clinton bans the import of over 50 types of foreign-made assault weapons.

Nov. 4, 1997:
Washington State tries to introduces
tough gun laws.

June 27, 1997:
The Supreme Court strikes down a key provision of the Brady gun law.

Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the law.

Office of the Mayor, Chicago

Information on Chicago's lawsuit against the gun industry

National Rifle Association

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Next, big city mayors going to court to reduce the sale of handguns. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago reports.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The trauma center at Chicago's Cook County Hospital is a busy place.

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.

An epidemic of gun violence.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Standing their ground.

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.

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 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.

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.

Undercover investigation.

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.

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.

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.

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 Justice 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.

A weak case?

PETER BUSTAMENTE, Lawyer: My clients are engaged in lawful commerce. I understand that the other 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.

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 - the wherewithal economically to do that, so we're going to have to fight.

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.