But the court said the company - which quietly went out of business in April -
could not be held responsible for the criminal conduct of its customers.
In the same vein, last December, U.S. District Judge Berle M. Spiller, ruling in
Philadelphia, said that laws enacted by the Pennsylvania legislature in 1995 and
in 1999 gave the power to regulate gun makers to the state legislature, and
barred the city from filing such lawsuits.
The judge also found little evidence to connect the marketing and sales
practices of the manufacturers to gun crimes.
Apart from state laws that have helped gun makers, there is another important
difference between the tobacco cases and the gun litigation. To date, no
gun-company documents have turned up suggesting any deliberate efforts to
develop a market for the guns among criminals.
"The tobacco companies played Hide the Salami," and that is not the case with
gun firms, said Paul Januzzo, vice president and legal counsel of Glock Inc.,
the Austrian gun maker. Gun-control advocates are undeterred. Dennis Henigan,
legal director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, noted that important
city lawsuits in Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit and elsewhere were moving forward.
Gun companies have already turned over documents in those cases.
Chris Mondics' e-mail address is
[email protected].
© Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.