Gun Manufacturers

Baltimore was added yesterday to the list of dozens of American cities and counties in which a legal assault is under way against gun manufacturers and others for alleged product-safety violations. John and Carole Price of Manchester filed a civil suit yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court seeking damages in the fatal shooting of their 13-year-old son in August 1998 by a younger boy who had found a 9 mm handgun in the Baltimore County townhouse where his father was a tenant. Though the lawsuit names as defendants the boy and his father, the gun's owner and the Fallston pawnshop where it was purchased, the Prices' attorneys focused on the gun's manufacturer, Sturm, Ruger & Co. of Southport, Conn.

Gun manufacturers may resume shipping handguns into Maryland under a compromise announced yesterday by House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. and state police officials. The compromise -- which calls for state police to test-fire handguns before they're sold so the manufacturers don't have to -- ends what Taylor and others had described as a "de facto ban on gun sales" created by Maryland's enforcement of a new gun-safety law that took effect last fall. "None of the law was intended by anybody, from the governor on down, to be banning handguns in Maryland," said Taylor, an Allegany County Democrat.

WASHINGTON -- Smith & Wesson, America's largest manufacturer of handguns, has issued a "clarification" of its landmark pact with the federal government that would effectively eviscerate many of the gun controls trumpeted by the Clinton administration. Smith & Wesson's interpretation -- posted quietly on its Web site -- has forced the company back into talks with the administration that could lead to a protracted court battle. Administration officials dismissed Smith & Wesson's interpretation as more of a public relations gambit than a genuine change of heart but said they would be willing to go to court to force Smith & Wesson into compliance.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening is proposing to spend $3 million over three years on gun safety research in an attempt to win support for his child-proof guns legislation. The funding proposal is likely to benefit Maryland's only handgun manufacturer, Beretta USA Corp., which some legislators worry would be threatened by Glendening's "Smart-Guns" bill. That legislation would require all handguns sold in the state to be equipped with built-in mechanical trigger locks and, eventually, a high-tech system to prevent anyone other than the owner from using them.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton left open the possibility that a 6-year-old Cuban boy caught in a fractious, international custody dispute could remain in the United States, though he vowed that "that politics or threats" would not determine the boy's fate.In an hour-long news conference that roved from the future of his marriage to the fate of the Panama Canal, Clinton tried to sum up a tumultuous year that started with his impeachment trial and will end weeks after the collapse of trade talks in Seattle.

Saying they want reform, not money, NAACP leaders filed a lawsuit yesterday demanding that nearly 100 gun manufacturers change the way they do business.The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., is hotly contested by America's powerful gun lobby because the changes would limit handgun sales and prohibit distributors from selling certain weapons to gun show dealers.Large firearms manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson, Remington and Glock Inc. are accused in the lawsuit of contributing, through negligence, to handgun-related deaths.

LAWSUITS claiming injury usually seek financial compensation. But a suit against gun manufacturers, dealers and importers being prepared by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People won't seek a dime. Instead, it will demand policy changes designed to curb the devastation of gun violence that disproportionately ruins African-American lives.The NAACP deserves credit for picking up the ball that Congress dropped on gun legislation in the aftermath of the Littleton tragedy and a school shooting in Georgia.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton emerged from a White House meeting on youth violence yesterday with a flurry of new proposals, from limited agreements with firearms manufacturers on gun control to a new task force to help parents screen out violence from their television sets and computers.But beneath the harmonious surface, representatives from the entertainment and gun industries continued to insist that their businesses should not be held responsible for incidents such as the massacre at a school in Littleton, Colo.

FIREARMS manufacturers have readily used technology to increase killing power while failing to use it to add safety features to their weapons.That is the complaint of five U.S. cities suing gun makers. The worthwhile legal maneuver appears to be gaining momentum now that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and some members of Congress have joined the call to hold manufacturers legally responsible for the societal damage that firearms inflict.The lawsuits raise several important legal questions.

At least two states are strongly considering whether to file lawsuits against the nation's leading firearms manufacturers, a move that could bring the same legal firepower to the municipal war against handguns that is leading the fight against cigarettes.The attorneys general in New York and Connecticut have senior aides working on strategies and draft complaints that would seek to recover many of the medical costs of treating gunshot victims, according to interviews with one attorney general, gun industry sources, and lawyers in both states.