Fizzling lawsuits: guns in the courts.

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

OF 33 GOVERNMENT-sponsored gun lawsuits filed since 1998, all but three have been dismissed. According to a tally by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the main industry group, 17 of those dismissals (including six that resulted from state legislation) are final, while the rest are on appeal. The remaining three cases are in the discovery phase.

So far the courts have not bought the argument that gun sellers are guilty of "negligent marketing" that allows weapons to fall into the hands of criminals. In November, for instance, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously rejected Chicago's lawsuit, saying the city's "assertions of negligent conduct are not supported by any recognized duty on the part of the manufacturer and distributor defendants." The court added that the city could not establish "proximate cause" because "the claimed harm is the aggregate result of numerous unforeseeable intervening criminal acts by third parties not under defendants' control."

The National Rifle Association (NRA) nevertheless is renewing its push for a federal...