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Page 5 • Wednesday, July 28, 1999
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SMOKING
GUN
to start lawsuits against gun makers. Can they really do that?
NO
O
Suing gun manufacturers chips
away at right to bear arms,
abuses purpose of lawsuits
lliilllfil
Marc
GRETHER
Moving the debate over gun
control into courts will help
stir public dialogue on issues
T he fight
against
the pre,
■derating
)Wer of the
rong’s via * ^ has
. ^ u„„i: told a new
nee shouldt<
story. It is.
of hope for
t niggling c
sease.
lefield in
courts,
he recent
iision of the
ational Asso-
Caleb
MCDANIEL
he French tition f or t ] ie Advancement of
t their xOTMored People (NAACPJ to file liti-
ortant thandjon against gun manufacturers
rage. But,! la welcome innovation to gun-
uld people bntrol efforts that have been sum-
ation that mily kicked to the ground for
n Bonaparte feinths by the machinations of the
[ational Rifle Association (NRA).
■Although this latest suit has en-
ftd a particularly high level of
ers is an atewlicity, it is only the latest devel-
graduaie .cinient in a legal movement
j|inst gun makers that has been
■ducted behind the political
scene for some time now.
According to an article in the
May 17 issue of The New Yorker
magazine, the same legal beagles
who have barked down Big Tobac
co into incredible settlements in
the past year have now turned
their attention to Big Guns.
Not surprisingly, these public-
interest lawyers have been hound
ed at every turn by conservative
gun advocates who believe pursu
ing policy changes through litiga
tion instead of legislation is unde
mocratic. But in spite of these
criticisms, efforts to file lawsuits
against weapons manufacturers are
both justified and judicious.
First, they are justified. As un
popular or even unsuccessful as
their cases may turn out to be, they
do offer a legitimate case.
Just as tobacco prosecutors
were able to establish that the in
dustry cloaked the risks of smoking
from the public, anti-gun lawyers
can argue that gun makers are not
straight with their customers about
the risks of owning a gun.
According to The New Yorker,
research shows that more suicides
are committed with guns than
homicides, and that gunowners are
more likely to suffer accidental self-
inflicted injuries than to use their
weapons against an attacker.
Litigators can use these facts to
argue that “gunmakers and their
defenders knowingly mislead the
public when they defend guns as a
safety protection — just as Big To
bacco misled the public about the
addictiveness of cigarettes.”
As unhappy as such an argu
ment may make the likes of Charl
ton Heston, the case is much like
the typical suit based on consumer
rights.
If lawyers can establish a rea
sonable product risk (which they
should have no problem doing
with guns, which are designed to
injure), they have a reasonable
lawsuit. It might not win in court,
but it has a right to be heard.
And in reality, winning is not
the most important goal of the new
anti-gun lawyers. According to at-
/ Pagei
re future!
coach.
/■ must ha 1
Dt a player
!e hopes t
:urnout at
uts and
i/VomeiVs advances in jobs,
olitics shatter glass ceiling
JOWA CITY, Iowa (U-WIRE)
For the first time in its histo-
JNASA put a woman, Eileen
lould alscPHi ns > i n command of a mis-
illn.
> the ICHF Hewlett Packard is the first of
tthing, Srp 20 largest publicly owned
rr a succeWmpanies to name a woman as
Resident and CEO, Carly S. Fio-
ch interedna.
1 said, ■The U.S. Women’s Soccer
left out.Team and the Women’s Nation-
iliBasketball Association prove
pt women’s sports can draw a
wd and can succeed.
■Women continue to shatter
K glass ceiling in many ca-
y Eers, many companies and
many sports.
I But getting to the top is only
half of the struggle.
1 It may be difficult for some
to understand why it is impor
tant for young girls to have peo-
■e such as Mia Hamm and
Bandi Chastain to look up to.
iBut it is extremely important,
■hen a little girl can say that
slje wants to be like Mia when
site grows up, and not like
Mike, there is a greater sense of
ownership in her personal
idream. No one can tell her she
is limited by her gender. She is
Watching someone like herself
not allowing her gender to be a
limiting factor.
am.
ib
The paths are not only being
made for young girls dreaming
of flying among the stars when
they grow up or for those who
want to kick the winning goal.
Women at universities will
benefit from the advances made
by their elders.
“The issue of
women's equality ...
is not a feminist
issue. It is a human
issue."
Barriers are being broken
every day, and as more women
receive a college-level educa
tion, their power in the work
force can only grow stronger.
Business and industry can no
longer afford to marginalize
women, nor can the political
world.
Elizabeth Dole and Hillary
Rodham Clinton both demon
strate that women are capable
of following their own dreams,
independent from those of their
husbands.
It would be nice to think that
women in new roles of power
are placed there because the
glass ceiling is being removed
willingly by those who put it in
place.
But there might not be any
choice but to remove it in the
years to come.
Slowly, the number of
women in college is growing
larger than the number of men
in college.
Such growth is expected to
continue, and the gap is expect
ed to widen in the next century.
At the University of Iowa,
women accounted for 52 per
cent of the student population
in the ’98-’99 academic year,
keeping in line with national
trends.
The issue of women’s equali
ty in the workforce, and the
world as a whole, is not a femi
nist issue.
It is a human issue.
Those resistant to women
with greater power in the work
force will not only do a great
disservice to themselves but
also to the important women in
their lives.
Kara Heinzig is a columnist
for The Daily Iowan at the
University of Iowa.
Mike Waqener/The Battalion
torney John Coale in The New
Yorker, the real objective is just to
“stir things up.”
“I mean, look, the gun issue’s
all over the place now,” he says. “A
year ago, it wasn’t.”
That insight may be the main
reason why taking gun makers to
court is the smartest thing consci
entious gun opponents can do.
Corporations that sell guns are en
tities created to make money for
stockholders, not to make princi
pled policy stands.
So, the best way to make corpo
rations control a product is to pull
at their pursestrings, not at their
heartstrings. Threaten to take away
their money, and they will listen.
This is a strategy that will never
work against the NRA, which sup
ports guns for principled reasons.
Anti-gun advocates must admit
their tired arguments against the
right to bear arms are not working,
at least not fast enough.
The only way to control guns
now is to go where the money is.
And that means going to court.
Caleb McDaniel is a junior
history major.
nee
again,
gun
rights are be
ing attacked
in America.
However,
the attacks are
now typically
being aimed
at gun manu-
facturers, not gun purchasers or
owners.
Following recent trends, at
tacks on the right to bear arms
are being made through the
courts, rather than through leg
islation.
The National Association for
the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) recently an
nounced plans to file a “class-ac
tion lawsuit to force gun manu
facturers to distribute their
product responsibly.”
At the 90th annual conven
tion of the NAACP, the group’s
president, Kweisi Mfume, an
nounced this move was prompt
ed by the failure of Congress to
pass gun control legislation and
because of the “landmark ver
dict in the Hamilton v. Accu-tek
case.”
In Hamilton v. Accu-tek, a
gun manufacturer was success
fully sued after a criminal used
its products in a shooting.
The NAACP has been on the
winning side of many important
legal battles in this country, in
cluding the landmark racial inte
gration case Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, which
challenged the notion of having
“separate but equal” schools for
white and black children.
Their work during the coun
try’s civil rights movement was
extremely important.
In fact, without some of the
lawsuits won during the strug
gle, some rights may not have
been obtained for many years to
come.
But this lawsuit is fundamen
tally different from those suc
cesses in many regards.
The lawsuit does not chal
lenge any existing law or
Supreme Court ruling, and it is
not morally correct.
One aim of the lawsuit is to
COLLEGIATE ROUNDUP
from U-Wire editorial reports
change the gun manufacturers
way of doing business by forcing
the manufacturers to monitor
gun distribution carefully. While
this may sound like a good idea,
it is not.
Like most industries in this
country, the gun industry has
various components.
Some players in the industry
work to make the guns; others
sell them to the public.
Of course, implicit in this
equation is the fact that the gun
makers do sell the guns to 'the
distributors.
But once they are out of the
factory, they are out of the
hands of the manufacturers.
Holding gun manufacturers
responsible for distribution is
just like holding car manufactur
ers responsible for car distribu
tion.
By the logic used in this suit,
if a drunken driver killed some
one using a Chevy, General Mo
tors could be sued. .
This would be a horrible
precedent.
If this lawsuit is won, we will
likely see many more lawsuits
brought against legally manufac
tured items that happen to be
.used by criminals.
Though many criminals use
guns to commit their crimes,
punishing the manufacturers
will not solve the problem.
Moreover, wasting time on
lawsuits such as this will ham
per efforts to resolve the prob
lems.
The NAACP has also recently
announced a national project to
bridge the gap between blacks,
Hispanics and whites in Internet
access. Through their partner
ship with AT&T, they plan to
create technology centers in 20
cities. This program has a
worthwhile goal and a good
plan to reach that goal.
The NAACP should stick to
projects such as this that benefit
its members and, by extension,
all of us.
But they should drop the law
suit, which can do us no good
and will definitely harm us.
Marc Grether is a mathematics
graduate student.
Teen drinking
still a problem
From the Minnesota
Daily at the University of
Minnesota.
Many more teenagers
drink alcohol than use il
licit drugs. Despite this
well-known fact, both
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, di
rector of national drug
policy, and the House Ap
propriations Committee
have worked to prevent
the inclusion of anti-drink
ing messages in federal
anti-drug efforts.
Citing concern that it
would “dilute" the cam
paign’s basic anti-drug
message, McCaffrey has
argued against legislation
that would have given
more publicity to the dan
gers of drinking. ...
McCaffrey’s anti-drug
stance is shortsighted.
By focusing solely on illicit
drugs, such as marijuana
and methamphetamines,
teenagers get the mes
sage that alcohol is
somehow more accept
able. Targeting all drug
use makes the message
consistent — and likely
more effective.
Members of the Appro
priations Committee sug
gested that including al
cohol-related messages
would diminish funding
that could be used to tar
get other types of drug
use. A better response
would be to increase the
overall funding. ...
We know alcohol is the
most abused drug among
teenagers.
Our anti-drug cam
paign should reflect this
knowledge.
lift itimk
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