Hindsight from The New Gun Week December 20, 1999
The Year of Columbine and Lawsuits
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
In this last issue dated in 1999, it would be customary to review many of the news stories of the past 12 months, but this year seems different.
For many, it will probably be remembered as the Year of Columbine when a random act of violence in Colorado was used to generate a firestorm of public opinion in support of more new gun laws.
Within days of the Littleton High School murders, the US Senate had been railroaded into passing a Juvenile Justice Bill which imposed stringent new gun control measures and virtually assured the end to traditional gun shows. When the White House succeeded in getting most of what they wanted from the Senate, President Clinton tried to steamroll the House into adopting the same language before Memorial Day.
Cooler heads prevailed in the House, where the leadership postponed consideration of the Juvenile Justice Bill for a month. Then, in June, the House passed a version that did not include any gun-related provisions. A joint House-Senate conference committee was supposed to negotiate a compromise by the fall, but never did so. The debate will continue in the second half of the 106th Congress next year.
Lawsuits
But if Columbine was used to kill off pro-gun bills at the state and federal level and to push anti-gun measure, perhaps 1999 should be remembered as the Year of the Gun Lawsuits.Following on the heels of two suits filed at the end of 1998, a total of 28 municipalities filed suit against the gun industry, its wholesalers, trade associations and dealers this past year.
Their intention, as well as that of other anti-gun officials in some states was to use the courts to steal what they had been unable to win by the democratic legislative process.
The prospects for success in the courts started to wane late in the year as some of the city suits ran into trouble in state courts. Then, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), which had threatened to sue the cities on behalf of gunowners, filled suit in federal court at the end of November.
Within days, the Clinton Administration moved to inject a government agency into the lawsuit maelstrom. On Dec. 7, the 57th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the White House announced that it was helping to prepare a class-action suit against gunmakers, alleging that guns and how they are marketed has contributed to violence in public housing projects.
The suit by some or all of the nation's 3,100 local public housing authorities would be patterned on suits filed against the industry by the cities and counties, the officials said.
Those suits claim that gun manufacturers have sold defective products or marketed them in ways that increase the likelihood that they will fall into the hands of criminals.
The new legal effort was seen by some officials as more of a threat aimed at bringing gun manufacturers to the negotiating table than an effort to actually take them to court.
The Administration hopes the threat of a national lawsuit will force gunmakers to agree to end practices such as marketing guns that are impervious to fingerprints.
A negotiated agreement would allow the Administration and gun control advocates to claim a victory at a time when Congress has rejected writing into law new firearms restrictions wanted by President Clinton.
"The Administration intends to work aggressively to try to work to reach a settlement with the industry," White House domestic policy adviser Bruce Reed said, according to Associated Press.
"If settlement is not possible, then the public housing authorities are prepared to go forward with their suit."
Administration officials said the White House and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are helping prepare the suit, even though the actual plaintiff would be independent local authorities that run federal housing programs.
The White House and HUD want gunmakers to agree to a code of conduct that includes cracking down on disreputable gun dealers and making safer guns.
"The legal theory is the same as the cities have been pursuing-the bottom line is the gun manufacturers have not been properly supervising their distribution channels," and otherwise failing to promote safety, a HUD official said.
The official would not detail any previous outreach to gunmakers but said new negotiations were planned.
"The administration and HUD is ready to sue, but our first priority is to change the practice of the industry. We think we should first sit down at the negotiating table," the HUD official said.
New York state's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, also is using the threat of a lawsuit to get gun manufacturers to negotiate a "code of conduct" governing the sale and distribution of their products.
The White House informed Spitzer that Clinton will announce that he wants to enter the New York talks, Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp said.
Among the companies reportedly involved in the discussions with Spitzer have been Smith and Wesson, Sturm, Ruger and Co., Colt Manufacturing, O.F. Mossberg and Sons, Taurus, Glock and Beretta. The gunmakers have acknowledged the talks, but objected to the characterization of the meetings as "negotiations."
Some gunmakers have declared bankruptcy in the wake of the suits by local governments and others have scaled back their product lines and decreased advertising. In addition, others are facing the problem of getting product liability insurance because of the city lawsuits. The proposed HUD lawsuit could make it impossible for gun manufacturers to buy insurance at any price.
HCI Applauds
Handgun Control Inc., whose lawyers are handling most of the city suits, cheered the White House announcement.Alan Gottlieb, founder of SAF, told Associated Press that if the housing authorities sue, his group would likely file a countersuit on behalf of gunmakers.
Gottlieb said the Administration is encouraging suits against gunmakers in hopes of bankrupting them. The idea, he said, is "file as many suits as possible. The industry can't fight hundreds of lawsuits-it would bankrupt them."
What the Clinton Administration and its allies are doing seems to fly in the face of public attitudes. Most editorials, even in traditionally anti-gun newspapers, have opposed the idea of using the courts and the threat of endless litigation to coerce gun industry into accepting new regulations that bypass the lawmaking process. Reports of public opinion polling done after the cities first announced plans to use the courts this way, showed the public was also opposed to this stratagem.
In the wake of the White House announcement, MSNBC found that the public still opposes this misuse of the courts. Here are the Dec. 8 results to an interactive web-TV news channel poll question:
"Should the White House pressure gunmakers with the threat of new lawsuits?"
Of 308 responses, only 17% said making it harder to buy guns should be the priority.
No, said 83%: Clinton's trying to get around Congress and undermine Second Amendment rights.
Can't decide: 0%
While these are not scientifically valid survey results, they do demonstrate once again that the public, as well as newspaper editors, finds the lawsuit avenue questionable, if not illegal.
Columbine Shadow Persists
The public's genuine concern about school shootings got further fueled by more school shooting reports in December. The Columbine syndrome is not going away.The shooting of four students at a Fort Gibson, OK, middle school in early December was followed by evidence of a copycat shooting across the Atlantic in the Netherlands. The Oklahoma shooting made big headlines, the one in Holland got little attention. Holland, of course, has strict gun control laws and there are few legal guns in private possession.
However, a teen-age student apparently bent on revenge opened fire inside a high school in the Netherlands, wounding a teacher and four students in what was described as the first school shooting in Dutch history.
Associated Press reported: "In a drama now chillingly familiar in the United States but unprecedented in this country known for its strict gun-control laws, the 17-year-old suspect fired more than 10 shots inside the regional vocational school in Veghel, about 60 miles south of Amsterdam. He then surrendered to police."
The Netherlands story seems more meaningful because it helps to point out the futility of enacting more gun laws in response to such incidents. While every focuses on debating guns, any attempt to explore the underlying causes is ignored. In that respect, 1999 was pretty much like every other year whether the focus has been on guns.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com