Editorials – December 28, 1999

Lousy aim:
Government puts pressure on gun makers

Last week, the Clinton administration announced its intentions to join lawsuits by 28 cities against gun makers.
The administration has already been helping behind the scenes by using government funds to produce gun control studies and taking out public service ads warning of the dangers of guns.
But despite these continuing efforts, the suits represent a new and worrisome level of federal involvement.
The lawsuits threatening gun makers are not only using the courts to do an end run around the legislative process, they are also aiming to make an end run around the entire legal system. By simultaneously bringing suits all across the country, the administration hopes to make it financially infeasible for companies to even have their day in court to defend themselves.
Trial lawyers see the suits as an opportunity to establish new legal precedents. Rather than asking the traditional questions about the benefits and costs of a product, the suits against the gun makers seek reimbursement for any costs while ignoring a product’s benefits.
Yet, all products have costs if used improperly. The government could ask car makers to reimburse them for the medical costs of auto accidents and brewers and distillers could be held liable for the actions of drinkers. The only thing missing is having these companies sue governments to be reimbursed for the benefits.
So why are these suits focusing on only the costs of guns instead of comparing their costs and benefits? Unlike the earlier tobacco suits, gun makers have powerful arguments about the benefits of ownership. Criminals tend to attack victims whom they perceive as weak ? and guns serve as an important deterrent against crime.
Take the case of so-called “hot burglaries,” where residents are at home when the criminals strike. Forty-four percent of the burglaries in Canada and 59 percent of those in Britain, both of which have tough firearms control laws, are “hot burglaries.” By contrast, the United States, with laxer restrictions, has a “hot burglary” rate of only 13 percent.
Consistent with this, surveys of convicted felons in America reveal that they are much more worried about armed victims than they are about running into the police. This fear of potentially armed victims causes American burglars to spend more time than their foreign counterparts “casing” a house to ensure that nobody is home. American felons frequently comment in these interviews that they avoid late-night burglaries because “that’s the way to get shot.”
President Clinton’s and the mayors’ claims are also at odds with the wisdom of the very people whose job it is to keep the streets safe. The police cannot feasibly protect everybody all the time.
Perhaps this is why police officers are sympathetic to law-abiding citizens owning guns. A 1996 survey of 15,000 chiefs of police and sheriffs conducted by the National Association of Chiefs of Police found that 93 percent of them thought law- abiding citizens should be able to purchase guns for self-defense.
Clinton and mayors also face a credibility problem: the Secret Service and police carry guns. It is hard for them to deny that being armed produces substantial benefits. If they really believe that guns do not deter criminals, there is one simple way they can demonstrate this: Disarm all their bodyguards. It is more than a bit hypocritical for them to demand that poor people live in high crime public housing projects without being able to own a gun, while Clinton and many mayors would never themselves enter these areas without their armed bodyguards.
The lawsuits charge that gun makers are engaged in reckless behavior because they continued selling guns even though they know that some percentage will be used improperly.
But a little perspective is needed. Americans own about 240 million guns. In comparison, about 450,000 gun crimes were committed in 1996. Even in the unlikely case that the average gun-toting criminal uses a gun just twice, only .09 percent of all the guns out there get used for criminal purposes in any given year. Of course, this ignores the more than 2 million times that Americans used guns to stop violent attacks.
If this is the standard by which recklessness is to be judged, many companies know that their products risk the same fate.
Should the government sue brewers because these companies know that some percentage of those who drink their product will behave improperly?
Surely auto companies sell their cars even though they know that more than a few percent will be involved in auto accidents. Once legal precedents are established they will not be easy to control.
After seven years in office, Clinton has finally put forward a proposal to improve the quality of life in America’s public housing projects. Yet, he is silent on telling the law-abiding poor what they should do when they are attacked by a criminal.
? John R. Lott Jr., Newsday
(Lott is a research scholar at Yale University.)