Groups Getting Out the Word on New Gun-Regulation Plan 5/26/00 From Join Together Online The Consumer Federation of America Foundation (CFAF) has announced that it is set to begin a widespread campaign to promote the concept of regulating firearms as consumer products. But the CFAF is not the only group that is doing something to seek an end to the gun industries unique exemption from health and safety regulations. In fact, a series of developments in government, courtrooms, academia, and in the firearms industry itself have created a growing belief that one of the most pragmatic ways to reduce gun violence in the U.S. is by regulating guns as consumer products. Government Actions In October 1997, then Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger developed regulations to govern firearms sales in the state under the consumer-protection powers of his office. It is believed to be the first time a state had attempted to regulate guns as consumer products. It was not until April 3 of this year, however, that the Massachusetts regulations went into effect because the gun industry had delayed their implementation by filing a lawsuit challenging the attorney general's right to regulate guns in that way. A state court ruled in favor of the attorney general last year, and when the gun industry decided not to appeal, the current attorney general, Thomas F. Reilly, announced that the regulations would henceforth go into effect. By that time, California had become the first state to pass legislation that applied substantive consumer protection provisions to guns. In August, 1999, Governor Gray Davis signed into law a package of laws designed to reduce gun violence in California. One of them will ban the manufacture, importation, and sale of unsafe handguns that do not meet basic safety standards, to be established by the attorney general by Jan. 1, 2001. Another new law requires that all guns sold in California be accompanied by childproof trigger locks by Jan. 1, 2002. The minimum standards for the locks are also to be established by the attorney general. One of the purposes of the new consumer-product approach to gun regulation in California was to get rid of cheaply made "junk guns," many of which were made in California by a group of six manufacturers surrounding Los Angeles. This group had come to be known as the "Ring of Fire" (for their geographical configuration around Los Angeles) from the title of a study by Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the University of California at Davis' Violence Prevention Research Program. Already threatened by a variety of municipal and other lawsuits seeking damages to recoup the costs of gun violence, two of these manufacturers, Davis Industries and Sundance Industries Inc., had filed for bankruptcy by year's end. A third manufacturer, Lorcin Engineering, had gone out of business. According to an article by Time magazine last year, Wintemute's research was largely responsible for the subsequent law to impose consumer-product-safety standards on handguns in California and for the demise of the "Ring of Fire." A week after Reilly's April announcement in Massachusetts, Maryland Governor Parris Glendening signed a gun law that included several consumer-protection features, including a requirement for external trigger locks for all handguns that are sold after Oct. 1 of this year and built-in locks by Jan. 1, 2003, ballistics testing to provide shell-casing "fingerprints" of every new gun, and safety training for gun buyers. Legal Actions Another area in which the consumer-protection argument has made progress has been litigation and the courts. Most notably, several litigants have achieved breakthrough verdicts and settlements against gunmakers using legal arguments that the defendant manufacturers have been negligent in how they design and distribute their wares. Early last year, a Brooklyn, N.Y. jury awarded damages to a plaintiff, finding that 15 handgun manufacturers were liable for negligent distribution of their products. And recently, Smith & Wesson agreed to settle a federal lawsuit by promising to manufacture safer guns. Marc K. Elovitz, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the Brooklyn case, Hamilton v. Accu-Tek, said that the jury's verdict "set a precedent that the gun manufacturers are responsible for the safe distribution of their product. (The verdict) says that they can't put their dangerous product onto the market without exercising some care-the care that every other type of manufacturer has to exercise." By the time that case was tried, the first cities to sue the gun industry in an effort to recoup public medical and public-safety costs caused by gun violence had filed suit. Looking at the mammoth national tobacco settlement, cities have seen parallels between cigarette makers and gun makers as "rogue" industries that have managed to withhold their products from the reach of government health and safety standards. New Technology Meanwhile, technological developments have created the possibility of "personalizing" firearms, prompting some public-health experts to advocate the various devices that restrict the use of a gun to its owner as a good way of reducing suicides and unintentional deaths and injuries, as well as reducing the flow of stolen guns. In 1998, Johns Hopkins University's Center for Gun Policy and Research published a booklet, "Personalized Guns: Reducing Gun Deaths Through Design Changes," which reported on developments of "personalization" technology, such as a product called the Saf T Lok, which prevents use of the gun without knowledge of a code that activates the gun by a series of touches on three keys. Another existing personalization device, the report states, is the Magna-Trigger, which requires the user to wear a ring which magnetically unlocks the gun. Public-health professionals point to this technology as an example of how consumer-product-safety standards should apply to guns. The Johns Hopkins report points to other examples of product-design modifications in other industries that have resulted in reduced injuries and deaths: Safer cigarette lighters save the lives of 80 to 105 children under the age of five each year, and automobile air bags, according to several studies, have reduced the total number of driver fatalities by 20 to 25 percent. Those changes were brought by governmental agencies possessing the powers to establish consumer-product regulations. While these well-established governmental powers over virtually all consumer products other than guns are widely accepted by the public, they constitute a new line of thinking when applied to firearms. Most efforts to reduce firearms death and injury--education, safety training, and laws governing who can buy guns and what kinds of penalties apply to criminal gun use--focus on individuals instead of guns. But as the Johns Hopkins report points out, "injury professionals have learned that modifying the design of products in addition to modifying the behavior of individuals is an effective way to prevent injury and death." Regulating Guns as Consumer Products Some gun control advocates, such as the Violence Policy Center (VPC), believe that personalized or "smart" gun technology may lead potential gun-buyers into a false sense of security and could create a boon for the gun industry. The VPC cites a 1997 Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research which found that, of respondents who were "unlikely to buy a gun in the future", 35 percent would "consider buying a handgun that would only fire for the owner of the gun." Instead, these advocates favor comprehensive federal regulation of the gun industry as the most effective means of reducing firearm-related death and injury. Proponents of the consumer-product safety approach to gun regulation point to the experience of governmental response to highway fatalities as a guide. They contend that it wasn't until the creation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that deaths started to drop. The NHTSA was empowered to create manufacturing safety standards that manufacturers were required to meet. Similarly, many gun-violence-prevention experts contend, standards for gun safety should be vested in a federal agency. There is a bill currently in Congress that would do just that. The Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act, co-authored by Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) and Senator Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) would give authority to the U.S. Department of the Treasury to regulate the design, manufacture, and distribution of guns and ammunition. Although that bill (H.R.920, S.534), is still in committee and is not expected to make it to the floor this session, it has been gaining co-sponsors and such national supporters as the American Bar Association, Consumer Federation of America, Handgun Control, Inc., Jewish Women International, NAACP, and the Violence Policy Center. Putting Thoughts Into Action Meanwhile, the Consumer Federation of America Foundation is preparing an ambitious project to promote the concept to its state and local membership organizations. According to Susan Glick, CFAF firearms project manager, the Consumer Federation of America Foundation is starting a three-year project to focus attention on the issue. The foundation will be giving out a series of "mini-grants" to organizations--six, to be announced soon, for the first year, and four more the second year--to develop the issue via educational programs, publicity, coalition-building, etc., in their locales. Glick said that the mini-grant recipients will come to Washington, D.C. this summer to attend a training session that will cover not only the issue of consumer-product regulation of guns, but the broader issue of gun violence and gun control in America. Some state gun control groups are already thinking about the consumer-product approach to gun regulation. John Johnson of Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence says that he's interested in shifting the group's attention to that area this summer. "I've spoken to people who have argued that the next step should be to regulate guns as consumer products," he said. "I think that's where we need to go next." Johnson said he's planning to study the subject further, with the intention of writing a policy paper for Iowa lawmakers. People who are concerned about gun violence and want to learn more about the consumer-protection model have several options on the Internet. The Consumer Federation of America Foundation has several fact sheets on its Web site at www.consumerfed.org/publist.html. So does the Violence Policy Center, at www.vpc.org. A detailed description of the Massachusetts regulations is availabe at www.ago.state.ma.us/condefault.asp#gunregs. Proponents of The Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act recommend that people contact their members of Congress to encourage them to co-sponsor the Torricelli/Kennedy bill. And Angus McQuilken, chief of state for Massachusetts state senator Cherly Jacques, a strong supporter of tougher gun laws, encourages people to contact their state representatives and encourage them to introduce bills modeled after the actions in California, Massachusetts, and Maryland. He also says that people seeking more information on the subject can e-mail him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Prepared by Join Together Staff -------[Cybershooters contacts]-------- Editor: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website & subscription info: www.cybershooters.org
