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NEWS
GUNS | LEGISLATION
Bang, Bang, All Dead?
Though the city's lawsuit against gunmakers was shot down, the wounds may not be fatal.
BY BRIAN HICKEY
It put 14 gunmakers square in its sights, squeezed a legal trigger and missed. Now, the city's legal team finds itself on the other end of a lawsuit that it once hoped would bolster its bank account. A few weeks back, a U.S. District Court threw out Philadelphia's lawsuit against gun manufacturers, saying state law prohibited the city from taking such action. The city's argument was the same as those in the more than 30 lawsuits filed by cities and counties across the country (along with similar action filed by the federal government): Gunmakers know their products get into criminals' hands and turn a profit for them with blood money. The aim of the lawsuit was to strip the companies of millions of dollars. The city planned to use the money from any settlements to cover costs related to gun violence. The argument is not unlike the one employed by attorneys who worked to bring down "Big Tobacco." Now City Solicitor Kenneth Trujillo must decide whether to appeal U.S. District Judge Berle M. Schiller's assertion that Philadelphia's case was built on a foundation of speculation and hypothesis.
"The gun manufacturers," Schiller wrote in his December decision, "cannot be said to have foreseen that their weapons would be illegally sold and used in crimes."
The decision was rather unremarkable; it mirrored dismissals in Camden, Chicago, Cincinnati and Miami.
What is remarkable, though, is Philadelphia's rabble-rousing role in an issue that now has the gun industry fighting back with the help of politicians from the home state of one certain president-elect. Rewind to 1998, when then-Mayor Ed Rendell had his peers from across the country seeing dollar signs. Buoyed by the huge tobacco settlement, Rendell told the U.S. Conference of Mayors that he thought the gun companies should pick up the tab for shooting-related expenses--like uninsured victims getting hospital treatment, police overtime and security costs at schools and other public facilities. The city took a leadership role on the issue, working behind the scenes to draft a lawsuit. But a funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse: Rather than being the first to actually file suit, Rendell sat back and negotiated with the industry--while at least 10 major cities put their necks on the line. (Rendell did, however, join up with the U.S. Justice Department and the NRA to start the $2.25 million "Operation Cease Fire," an aggressive move to punish federal gun offenders).
Just to open the conspiracy-theory door a crack, the delay enabled gun activists to get a state law on the books preventing cities from filing such suits. Buoyed by Mayor Street's pre-election promise to attack the gun companies, City Solicitor Trujillo forged ahead anyhow. Judge Schiller--a former law partner of state Sen. Vincent Fumo who represented the guns-rights advocate in his divorce case--used that law to strike down the city's claim. Admittedly, the city expected the case to be decided on the appeals level (had it won, it knew the gun companies would continue their fight), but it'll now make moves to push the matter further into the judicial system. "This is an important issue," says Trujillo, who jumpstarted a similar suit while he was city solicitor in Camden. Philadelphia never delineated just how much cash they were seeking. But other cities were looking to recover hundreds of millions from the gun manufacturers. "This is not an attack on legitimate gun owners. This is an attack on companies that illegally market weapons and target illegal buyers as customers. We're going to continue to fight the good fight." Trey Blocker of the Civil Liberties Defense Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Austin, Texas, disagrees with Trujillo. He says cities are suing the companies in an effort to get around laws by using frivolous lawsuits to bankrupt gun manufacturers. And what does he think about Rendell?
"He's been a driving force against the industry and against the Constitution," Blocker says.
Backed by a laundry list of current and former politicians, the countersuit--no financial details are listed--seeks to have the suits and appeals thrown out in a "speedier fashion." If Philadelphia's appeal continues, Blocker says, the city will remain a defendant and risk losing money in what officials once viewed as a potential financial windfall.
As for Street, Blocker characterizes him as one of numerous politicians who use gun-manufacturer suits "to get good publicity for a cause they apparently believe in."
Trujillo said last week that Blocker's allegations were inaccurate. In a call from his original hometown of Durango, Colo., last week, Trujillo explained that he grew up in a community where 14-year-olds are required to take hunter's safety courses.
"I'm not an anti-gun person," he says. "But it's different worlds--a town of 20,000 where people are taught to be responsible gun owners is different from a city of 1.5 million where that's not the case." He says two other cases similar to Blocker's have already been successfully defended and expects the same for the latest. "It's not very original," he says, noting that four city attorneys and five from outside firms have been working on the matter. "We're defending it, but I think we're 100 percent within our rights and responsibilities."
Brian Hickey (bhickey@philadelphiaweekly.com) last wrote about PW's Man of the Year, Allen Iverson.
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/
NEWS
GUNS | LEGISLATION
Bang, Bang, All Dead?
Though the city's lawsuit against gunmakers was shot down, the wounds may not be fatal.
BY BRIAN HICKEY
It put 14 gunmakers square in its sights, squeezed a legal trigger and missed. Now, the city's legal team finds itself on the other end of a lawsuit that it once hoped would bolster its bank account. A few weeks back, a U.S. District Court threw out Philadelphia's lawsuit against gun manufacturers, saying state law prohibited the city from taking such action. The city's argument was the same as those in the more than 30 lawsuits filed by cities and counties across the country (along with similar action filed by the federal government): Gunmakers know their products get into criminals' hands and turn a profit for them with blood money. The aim of the lawsuit was to strip the companies of millions of dollars. The city planned to use the money from any settlements to cover costs related to gun violence. The argument is not unlike the one employed by attorneys who worked to bring down "Big Tobacco." Now City Solicitor Kenneth Trujillo must decide whether to appeal U.S. District Judge Berle M. Schiller's assertion that Philadelphia's case was built on a foundation of speculation and hypothesis.
"The gun manufacturers," Schiller wrote in his December decision, "cannot be said to have foreseen that their weapons would be illegally sold and used in crimes."
The decision was rather unremarkable; it mirrored dismissals in Camden, Chicago, Cincinnati and Miami.
What is remarkable, though, is Philadelphia's rabble-rousing role in an issue that now has the gun industry fighting back with the help of politicians from the home state of one certain president-elect. Rewind to 1998, when then-Mayor Ed Rendell had his peers from across the country seeing dollar signs. Buoyed by the huge tobacco settlement, Rendell told the U.S. Conference of Mayors that he thought the gun companies should pick up the tab for shooting-related expenses--like uninsured victims getting hospital treatment, police overtime and security costs at schools and other public facilities. The city took a leadership role on the issue, working behind the scenes to draft a lawsuit. But a funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse: Rather than being the first to actually file suit, Rendell sat back and negotiated with the industry--while at least 10 major cities put their necks on the line. (Rendell did, however, join up with the U.S. Justice Department and the NRA to start the $2.25 million "Operation Cease Fire," an aggressive move to punish federal gun offenders).
Just to open the conspiracy-theory door a crack, the delay enabled gun activists to get a state law on the books preventing cities from filing such suits. Buoyed by Mayor Street's pre-election promise to attack the gun companies, City Solicitor Trujillo forged ahead anyhow. Judge Schiller--a former law partner of state Sen. Vincent Fumo who represented the guns-rights advocate in his divorce case--used that law to strike down the city's claim. Admittedly, the city expected the case to be decided on the appeals level (had it won, it knew the gun companies would continue their fight), but it'll now make moves to push the matter further into the judicial system. "This is an important issue," says Trujillo, who jumpstarted a similar suit while he was city solicitor in Camden. Philadelphia never delineated just how much cash they were seeking. But other cities were looking to recover hundreds of millions from the gun manufacturers. "This is not an attack on legitimate gun owners. This is an attack on companies that illegally market weapons and target illegal buyers as customers. We're going to continue to fight the good fight." Trey Blocker of the Civil Liberties Defense Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Austin, Texas, disagrees with Trujillo. He says cities are suing the companies in an effort to get around laws by using frivolous lawsuits to bankrupt gun manufacturers. And what does he think about Rendell?
"He's been a driving force against the industry and against the Constitution," Blocker says.
Backed by a laundry list of current and former politicians, the countersuit--no financial details are listed--seeks to have the suits and appeals thrown out in a "speedier fashion." If Philadelphia's appeal continues, Blocker says, the city will remain a defendant and risk losing money in what officials once viewed as a potential financial windfall.
As for Street, Blocker characterizes him as one of numerous politicians who use gun-manufacturer suits "to get good publicity for a cause they apparently believe in."
Trujillo said last week that Blocker's allegations were inaccurate. In a call from his original hometown of Durango, Colo., last week, Trujillo explained that he grew up in a community where 14-year-olds are required to take hunter's safety courses.
"I'm not an anti-gun person," he says. "But it's different worlds--a town of 20,000 where people are taught to be responsible gun owners is different from a city of 1.5 million where that's not the case." He says two other cases similar to Blocker's have already been successfully defended and expects the same for the latest. "It's not very original," he says, noting that four city attorneys and five from outside firms have been working on the matter. "We're defending it, but I think we're 100 percent within our rights and responsibilities."
Brian Hickey (bhickey@philadelphiaweekly.com) last wrote about PW's Man of the Year, Allen Iverson.