Willamette Week| News| Politics

The city of Portland is about to do to gun makers what the state did to the tobacco industry.

At a City Council retreat last week, Mayor Vera Katz let it slip that the city is considering a lawsuit--at the request of the U.S. Conference of Mayors--that is modeled after the anti-tobacco litigation recently filed by 44 states, including Oregon.

The idea was greeted enthusiastically by Jim Francesconi, the only lawyer on the City Council. "I would come out of retirement to handle this case," says Francesconi. "I think the tide is turning, just as it has with cigarettes and the auto industry."

Katz, who serves on a gun-control task force created by the national mayors group, noted that Chicago and New Orleans filed anti-gun lawsuits in the last month. She's instructed City Attorney Jeff Rogers to study those suits and determine whether Portland can devise similar strategies.

Katz says either she or Rogers will attend a national meeting Dec. 10 in Chicago that might prove decisive. "I predict that we will be asked to join one of the suits or begin our own," the mayor says.

The New Orleans and Chicago suits are as different as the Crescent and Windy cities.

The New Orleans suit against 15 gun manufacturers, five pawn shops and three trade associations is based on product-liability law. It alleges guns are unreasonably dangerous in design because they fail to incorporate "smart gun" safety systems--such as personalized gun locks that would allow only the owner to fire a weapon. New Orleans claims that it has lost millions in police emergency services, police pensions, medical care and tax revenue because of hand guns lacking safety features.

The $433 million Chicago suit relies on public-nuisance law. The city has one of the toughest gun laws on record yet continues to be flooded by new guns. Posing as gangsters and thugs, undercover Chicago cops went into suburban gun stores and purchased 171 guns in a recent three-month span. The suit contends that gunmakers, stores and distributors create excess costs for Chicago's police, fire department and public hospitals by selling guns to people with criminal intentions.

Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles are mulling over similar suits. Katz stresses, however, that Portland doesn't have a case yet--nor does it have any specific targets, financial amounts or compelling arguments nailed down.

Francesconi believes the problem is clear. "There are too many handguns floating around," he says. In 1996 there were 102 gun deaths in Multnomah County, according to the Oregon Health Division.

The consequences are very real, says Dr. Linda Erwin, a surgeon who often treats gunshot victims at the Legacy Emanuel Hospital trauma center. "Approximately 85 percent of hospital costs for firearm injuries are paid out of public funds because victims are often not insured," she says. The average cost of such treatment is between $20,000 and $30,000, Erwin estimates.

Some gun-control advocates say cities had to file lawsuits because lawmakers won't demand safety improvements. "It's understandable why mayors are resorting to the courts," says Kristen Rand, a lawyer for the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C. "From a federal view, there's no hope for meaningful reform in the short term. Republicans get huge contributions, both in cash and grassroots support, from gun groups."

Rep. Earl Blumenauer wishes that cities didn't feel compelled to sue. He worries that the tobacco settlement negotiated by Oregon and other states is too lenient on the industry.

Gun-rights advocates are already preparing a counter-strike. "Forewarned is forearmed," says John Nichols, executive director of Oregon Gun Owners. Nichols has his group's attorney, John DiLorenzo Jr., checking on the legality of a city suit.

Nichols argues that gun makers are being unfairly targeted. "Why don't they sue car manufacturers in the same situation? As far as I know cities don't sue on behalf of citizens when somebody misuses a vehicle," he says. "It's a back-door approach to gun control, something they can't win in the Legislature."

Attacking gun makers also has the allure of easy money and popular politics, says Kevin Starrett, Oregon representative for Gun Owners of America.

"It's a wonderful way to generate revenues, and there's huge political motivation," says Starrett. "People who vote for liberal politicians will like this very much."

But those liberal politicians may have gone too far this time. "Next it will be red meat and junk food," says Starrett. "This will probably have the effect of focusing gun manufacturers on gun rights. Typically, they have not been big supporters of gun rights. But now that their ox is being gored, maybe they'll take a stronger line."

So far gun execs have argued that guns are not like cigarettes. "There is a big, obvious difference," says Starrett. "Cigarettes, when used as intended, will kill you. A gun will not."

But gun-control advocates like Rand, the Washington, D.C., lawyer, claim there are traces of similarities between the two industries. Gun groups do, for instance, market to kids. "It's not as public as Joe Camel, but it is as aggressive a campaign," she says.

Rand also wonders if the gun industry has concealed information about the readiness of "smart gun" technology. "I think the big ingredient missing in these grand-scale lawsuits is the kind of internal documents seen in tobacco litigation: documents that expose how the tobacco industry used nicotine to addict people; how they targeted kids," Rand says. "We don't have that information on the gun industry to date."

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Willamette Week | originally published December 2, 1998