In a New York City suit against 60 gunmakers and gun sellers, survivors of victims of gun violence are charging gun companies with distributing weapons in a way calculated to evade gun-control laws. Two California cases are going after the gun industry for making cop-killer bullets and guns that fail to indicate they're loaded when they have a round in the chamber but an empty clip. The families of two people killed in the Jonesboro, Ark., school massacre are preparing a lawsuit against a gunmaker for not including a trigger lock. And the mayors of Philadelphia, Chicago and other cities may sue to recover the cost gun crimes add to city budgets. To the gun industry, these suits defy established law and basic fairness.
Guns are legal to manufacture and safe when used properly.
It isn't their fault, the manufacturers say, that criminals buy their products and use them to shoot people. So far, courts have largely sided with the gun companies. Victims of guns that misfire because of a mechanical defect have won some cases, and stores have been held liable for selling guns under wildly unreasonable circumstances. But suits blaming the gun industry when its products are used in crimes or by careless third parties almost always fail. Well, maybe not.