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http://www.msnbc.com/news/343784.asp
NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 7 — Arguing that gun violence at public housing projects is costing taxpayers too much, the Clinton administration is preparing to file a class-action lawsuit against gun manufacturers, sources told NBC News on Tuesday.
ENCOURAGED BY SUCCESSFUL lawsuits against cigarette makers, cities, counties and private organizations have been trying to use a similar strategy against gun manufacturers. The federal involvement is a major escalation of what promises to be a bitter battle.
The White House believes that the mere threat of a federal lawsuit will put tremendous pressure on the industry to crack down on disreputable gun dealers and curtail illegal gun sales.
Sources told NBC News that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would file suit on behalf of all of the federal public housing projects around the country early next year.
‘CAN HELP SAVE LIVES’
Officials of the public housing authority in New Orleans, home of the troubled Saint Bernard public housing project, said they would join the federal suit.
“I think in the long run it’s a good thing and I welcome it and I applaud it,” New Orleans Mayor Mark Morial said. “I think the federal involvement is also a recognition that in these public housing neighborhoods, which are uniquely areas where the federal government is very involved, that gun safety can help save lives.”
The gun industry is already under siege. New Orleans is one of 28 cities that has already filed suit, seeking to recover the costs of gun violence.
But the federal lawsuit would raise the stakes dramatically.
White House aides admit their real aim in threatening a national, class-action lawsuit is to pressure gun manufacturers to settle the existing suits with the cities and agree to a code of conduct that would require the industry to:
Crack down on gun sales to disreputable dealers.
Computerize gun inventories for easier tracking.
Manufacture safer guns.
Stop advertising a particular kind of gun that’s popular with criminals, which is marketed as fingerprint proof.
THE COST TO TAXPAYERS
“Every year the residents of public housing see 10,000 gun crimes and the taxpayers shell out a billion dollars in security costs,” Bruce Reed, a White House domestic policy adviser, said. “That’s wrong. We think the gun industry has a responsibility to change the way it does business.”
But some Republicans accused the White House of trying to further politicize the issue of gun violence heading into next year’s elections.
“I don’t believe the American people are looking for a solution that would clog our courts with more lawsuit abuse,” said Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas.
A gun industry spokesperson on Tuesday called the federal government’s threat counterproductive.
Meanwhile, some gun owners are firing back against the cities and counties that have sued the industry that provides them with their firearms.
On Nov. 30, the Second Amendment Foundation, announced it had filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Mayors and some individual mayors alleging that they had engaged in “conspiracy to violate civil and constitutional rights” and were attempting to create “an undue burden on lawful interstate commerce.”
[This message has been edited by deanf (edited December 07, 1999).]