SACRAMENTO, CA -- Spurred by legal victories against tobacco companies, trial lawyers, local government officials, and liberal activists are taking aim at gun manufacturers. Cities nationwide, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento, are suing or planning to sue gun manufacturers for millions of dollars. Although city
officials claim that they are simply trying to recoup public safety and health costs associated with gun
crimes, a new study concludes that such suits are ill-advised.

"Suing Gun Manufacturers: Hazardous to Our Health," the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) emphasizes
that the costs cited by the cities must be weighed against the benefits for lawful defensive gun use. This is an important but neglected point. The cities’ argument, at its core, is based on the assumption that widespread gun availability and use result only in bad consequences. The NCPA study points out, however, that wide availability and use also result in positive consequences.

What are the positive consequences? In regard to the cities’ lawsuits, the relevant benefits center on
law-abiding citizens’ legitimate defensive use of guns against criminals. Noted Florida State University
criminologist Gary Kleck who co-authored the highly praised The Great American Gun Debate (Pacific
Research Institute 1997) reasonably estimates that Americans use guns defensively to prevent a crime
approximately 2.5 million times every year. Defensive use of guns results in immediate benefits--preventing
the intended crime. The use of guns in self-defense also prevents many violent, predatory criminals from
committing future crimes. Using conservative estimates of the cost of individual crimes, the NCPA study says
that Kleck’s figures mean that "the saving to society from the crimes prevented is about five times greater
than the cost to society of firearms violence." Indeed, estimates of the net benefit of defensive gun use range
from $1 billion to $38.9 billion.

In addition to the shoddy empirical basis for the suits, the NCPA study also warns that the suits are an
end-run around the democratic process. As one federal court decision stated, "Imposing liability for the sale
of handguns, which would in practice drive manufacturers out of business, would produce a handgun ban by judicial fiat in the face of the decision by [the legislature] to allow its citizens to possess handguns."

Finally, if the lawsuits are successful, and the supply of guns is limited, then there will be a slew of negative consequences. First, with supply limited, the price of guns will go up. According to the NCPA study, "higher gun prices will disarm precisely those individuals [i.e., the poor] who are most likely to face violent crime and who would most benefit from easier access to guns and widespread gun ownership." Further, the study says higher prices would increase the black market for guns and make gun thefts more profitable and more likely.

The bottom line is that in their pursuit of easy bucks for their treasuries, cities will end up making life
for their citizens not more but less safe. But then, counter-productivity seems to be a required element of
much government policymaking these days.

--Lance T. Izumi