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Another article from the www.usnews.com website.

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Trying to take gun makers to court

Their wares work just as intended--and often someone ends up dead.
Will courts order gun makers to pay up?

Maybe so. The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence says it poked "the
first hole in the dike of the gun industry's invincibility" last
spring when it won a $150,000 settlement from a Nevada pawnshop that
sold a semiautomatic "assault pistol" to a man who later shot eight
people to death in a San Francisco office building. The center is now
aiding heirs of a 15-year-old Berkeley, Calif., boy who was shot and
killed accidentally by a friend. A suit against makers of the Beretta
handgun used in the shooting alleges that the design was defective
because it did not include "smart" technology that would have
prevented anyone but the owner from firing it. Beretta denies
negligence.

A frequent target of lawsuits is the Glock 9-mm semiautomatic pistol,
which is popular among police officers. Critics say the lightweight
firearm discharges too easily, endangering suspects as well as law
enforcers and their families. Last May, the 3-year-old daughter of a
Washington, D.C., police officer accidentally killed herself after
climbing onto a coffee table and taking her father's Glock off a
cabinet. At least 35 suits have been filed over injuries or deaths
from the pistol; Glock denies wrongdoing but has settled a few cases
on confidential terms.

Street sales. Nineteen relatives of victims struck down by
black-market guns are attempting, in a case in a Brooklyn federal
court, to hold major firearms makers liable as a group. Among the
plantiffs is Freddie Hamilton, whose 17-year-old son was killed on the
street by a handgun. The suit contends that the industry fails to keep
its products from falling into criminal hands. Judge Jack Weinstein, a
veteran of cases involving products like Agent Orange and blasting
caps, refused last spring to dismiss the case, suggesting that the
industry may be linked to "a large-scale underground market."

"Preposterous," say gun advocates like Richard Feldman of the American
Shooting Sports Council. Ordering a manufacturer to pay if its gun is
used in a crime long after a legal sale "defies fact, logic and the
law," he asserts. That view may prevail, but not before gun makers are
put through the legal wringer.

BY TED GEST
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Troy


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