Easy target: anti-gun litigation.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings - Brief Article

DURING A THREE-year period, Bull's Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma, Washington, somehow lost track of 238 guns. One of them, a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle, ended up in the hands of John Lee Malvo and John Allen Muhammad, who used it in the D.C.-area sniper shootings of 2002.

In September, Bull's Eye agreed to pay the relatives of eight sniper victims 52 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the dealer of failing to take security precautions that might have prevented Malvo from shoplifting the $1,600 murder weapon. The gun's manufacturer, Bushmaster Firearms of Windham, Maine, kicked in an additional $550,000.The plaintiffs argued that Bushmaster should have stopped doing business with Bull's Eye after federal audits revealed the store's lackadaisical approach to inventory control.

This was the first time a manufacturer had agreed to pay anything in a lawsuit alleging negligent distribution, the theory at the center of various government backed lawsuits against the gun industry. Bushmaster, citing...