By John R. Lott Jr., a fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.
Every product has illegitimate uses and undesirable consequences.
No one is yet proposing that state or city governments should recoup medical costs or police salaries by suing automobile or bicycle companies, pool builders or makers of home heaters. Such suits make as little sense as pool builders suing the government to recoup the health benefits from exercise. But suing manufacturers for any costs cities incur from gun injuries and deaths is exactly the theory behind the lawsuits by Chicago and New Orleans against gun makers. Gun control groups, which are helping organize the litigation, claim that as many as 60 cities will eventually sue. With so many simultaneous suits, the goal is not to win these weak cases in court but to bankrupt legitimate small companies through massive legal costs.