> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Gun industry being fired upon
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/gun-industry-being-fired-upon/
- Published: 2005-01-18T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:01:54.000Z
- Author: David Pisarra
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*WHAT’S THE POINT?*

Tobacco was the income source for many people — from the farmers who grew it, to the retail store owner who sold it. This noxious weed provided home and hearth during most of the last century and the one before it. Today, with the combined efforts of a medical community aligned against it, and under a court order to advertise against, the industry is dying. It was a combined war by those who hate the smell, the ill health effects and the perceived societal costs. The goal was to shut down an industry.

That same war is being fought these days on the front-line of the gun issue. On the one side are the Second Amendment activists who strictly construe its terms. It’s a testament to inherent flexibility of the U.S. Constitution that a 27-word paragraph can create such a firestorm of anger, argument and acrimony. It reads simply enough, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

And this is where the argument starts. One side says the sentence turns on the word “militia,” meaning that only those in a militia need guns. The other side argues that when the Constitution uses the words “the people” it means everyone.

But this argument is not very successful for the people who would outlaw all the guns. For those people who believe that in a modern day society there is no need for a gun, they want to make gun ownership a thing of the past. Much like the anti-tobacco people want to make smoking a quaint historical anomaly equivalent to ladies bustles.

The problem is that they are failing to win the hearts and minds of the majority of the people. I don’t actually own a gun but I like the fact that I could if I wanted to. And I think that most people, well most men, agree with me on that. Most women are more of the opinion that guns are dangerous and aren’t necessary.

The anti-gun lobby has a lot going for it. They get to be on the side of the innocent victims who are killed or maimed. They get the sympathy votes of those of us who are sympathetic.

The gun lobby on the other hand has many things going for it. Besides just having Moses as a spokesperson, (OK it’s really Charlton Heston, but you know what I mean), there is the redneck contingent who think that if something is written in a book it must be true. That’s mostly because they can’t read the book to figure out what it really says, but that’s another issue.

The gun lobby has tremendous funding and popularity. Nationally, Americans buy guns, a lot of them. And it’s not just the illegal midnight specials either. “Long guns” are defined as shotguns and rifles. They kill just as easily as the pocket-sized handgun. As recently as 1999 in California guns sales were increasing 30 percent over the prior period.

Most guns are not used, thankfully, and when they are, it is either in recreational uses, such as target practice, or hunting for animals.

The actual usage of guns in crimes, compared to the ownership of guns is a small percentage. The problem is that this is a very visible percentage. And when someone is shot or killed in a crime, it’s a heart-rending situation because for the most part, they did not a need to be shot. Unless they are the perpetrator, the victim is a sympathetic character.

It’s that sympathy that has led to the latest assault on the gun industry. On Aug. 10, 1999 a mentally unbalanced Buford Furrow, a follower of the Aryan Nations, opened fire on a Jewish community center in Granada Hills, wounding five people. Later, he opened fire on Joseph Ileto, a Filipino American who was shot because he “looked Asian or Latino” and worked for the government.

Ileto’s family and the families of three of the children wounded by Furrow have sued the manufacturers for their damages, based on a theory that the gun manufacturers have produced more guns than could be purchased by legal users, and therefore creating a secondary market for the excess guns.

Traditional product liability theory creates a liability on the manufacturer of a product if the product does not act in the manner in which it was designed to act. This is a strict liability, meaning that the manufacturer is liable no matter what the outside circumstances are.

Usually in product liability cases there is the purchaser, the user and manufacturer. If either the purchaser or the user is hurt in using the product, they can sue the manufacturer. For example, if you buy a stock pot, and your spouse is making chili, and the pot melts, causing hot chili to flow out and splatter all over the body of your spouse, they can sue the manufacturer for their damages.

In the Ileto case, they are suing the manufacturers not because the guns they built were defective, but because they made too many of them. That made getting a gun easy, and that, in theory, is what led to the mayhem on Aug. 10, 1999 and the murder of Ileto.

This case has worked its way up from the trial court to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, to the U.S. Supreme Court, who let stand a ruling that Ileto’s mother and the families of the three other victims could sue Glock Inc., and China North Industries, among others. The U.S. Supreme Court, by sending the case back for trial, is saying that there might be a theory under which these victims can recover against the gun manufacturers.

It’s this type of backdoor assault on an industry that leads to its destruction. Just take a look at the tobacco industry to see what this type of ruling leads to. The tobacco industry is forced to actively advertise that its product is unhealthy.

This type of lawsuit is an unfair attack on a legal business. The more appropriate lawsuit I think would be the victims suing the government for not providing Buford Furrow with the mental help he needed before he killed one man and maimed five, rather than a lifetime of medical care, and room and board in a prison. The liability is the government’s failure to act in a timely and effective manner to help the mentally violent, before they do harm.

As a society we naturally put limits on what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Suing the gun manufacturers for guns that are used by a crazy person makes as much sense as suing the car manufacturers for making cars that are used by drunk drivers who kill people. (David Pisarra is a business development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or (310) 664- 9969).

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 18, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/011805.pdf?ref=smdp.com)