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Gun Industry Remains Tough Foe in Court
8/17/01
The strategy to use the nationwide tobacco lawsuit as a model to sue gun manufacturers doesn't appear to be working in court, as most U.S. cities have lost their cases, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Aug. 12.
Following the nationwide tobacco settlement, a number of municipalities throughout the United States thought the same strategy could work with the gun industry. Lawsuits were filed against gunmakers for allegedly marketing weapons to criminals.
Two years have passed since the first lawsuit was filed against the gun industry and so far, gun makers have been almost unbeatable in court.
Some experts are optimistic that the tide may turn. Richard Daynard, a law professor at Northeastern University and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project, said the gun lawsuits are similar to the tobacco litigation 15 years ago, when plaintiffs' lawyers were experimenting with legal theories in the hopes that a judge would uphold one of them.
"We had plenty of setbacks in the tobacco litigation," Daynard said. "In the gun litigation, the plaintiffs are still trying to find some traction."
Owen Clements, deputy city attorney in San Francisco, Calif., who oversees both the tobacco and gun litigation, pointed out that the tobacco industry didn't lose a case for years until damaging documents surfaced in the mid-1990s.
But Chuck Michel, a spokesman for the California Rifle and Pistol Association and a lawyer for the National Rifle Association, said, "It's not like the gun industry has those kind of dirty secrets that are somehow going to come out and turn the gun industry into the tobacco industry."
Gun industry lawyers contend that while tobacco companies for years disputed the harmful effects of cigarettes, there are no such attempt to hide the dangers posed by guns. "Our clients clearly believe these lawsuits are a misguided attempt to curb gun-related violence," said James Vogts, a Chicago, Ill., attorney representing Sturm Ruger, the nation's largest firearms manufacturer.