Gun Distribution and Sales

The Legal Action Project works to bring about significant changes in the manner in which the gun industry distributes firearms. The ease with which criminals and juveniles can obtain guns is a serious problem throughout the United States. Gun manufacturers distribute guns through distribution systems that they know divert large numbers of guns to illegal secondary markets and provide a steady supply of weapons to criminals and juveniles, circumventing state and federal laws designed to prevent acquisition of guns by such individuals.

The gun industry's distribution systems make guns available to criminals and juveniles through a variety of practices, such as "straw purchases" in which a person prohibited by law from buying a gun has another person complete the required paperwork on his behalf. Gun sellers not only participate in these illegal transactions in circumstances where they know or should know the "straw buyer" is not the gun's true purchaser, but even suggest and encourage such transactions to avoid losing sales. Despite circumstances signaling purchasers' unlawful intent, dealers also make knowing "multiple sales" of guns to traffickers who promptly transfer them to prohibited purchasers via the unlawful market. Gun makers also distribute guns through dealers who do not maintain genuine business premises (known as "kitchen table" dealers because many sell guns out of their homes), often do not comply with legal restrictions on sales, and supply a disproportionate number of the guns obtained by criminals and juveniles.

Gun manufacturers have created and maintained financial incentives for their dealers to maximize sales by facilitating the flow of guns to illegal users. Meanwhile, these manufacturers uniformly follow a strategy of willful blindness to dangerous and corrupt sales practices and avoid taking any of the steps that would reduce them, such as providing training to dealers, requiring dealers to abide by standards or restrictions, monitoring dealers, investigating the background of dealers or their sales employees or agents, determining which dealers are disproportionate sources of guns recovered after use in crimes, or terminating the supply of guns to the worst dealers.

The strength of the gun industry's determination to exploit illegal markets and demand is underscored by the fact that, unlike other manufacturers, gun makers receive thousands of formal notices every year that the guns they manufacture and distribute have been diverted to criminal misuse. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms contacts the manufacturer when it initiates a trace of a gun recovered in crime, which happens hundreds of thousands of times every year. The trace requests and other data would enable gun manufacturers to obtain a clear understanding of the points in their distribution systems through which guns are being diverted to criminal use. Indeed, ATF data reveals that, nationwide, just 1.2 percent of current dealers account for 57 percent of successful crime gun traces. Despite the availability of this information, no gun manufacturer has attempted to identify, question, correct, or terminate these dealers who are the most prolific sources of guns used in crime.

The Legal Action Projects works to reform gun distribution practices by establishing that gun manufacturers, distributors, and dealers have a duty under the law to exercise care in conducting their business, and can be held accountable in courts for failing to fulfill that legal responsibility.

RELATED ARTICLES

J. Bonderman "Civil Liability of Firearms Dealer for Illegal Sale of Crime Gun," CTLA Forum (June 1993)

Imposing liability on gun dealers for violating statutes barring sales of guns to minors and other prohibited persons, based on negligence causes of action, will change the overall behavior of those involved in the industry. The author looks at several cases indicative of the trend toward imposing dealer liability when the sale is illegal or the foreseeability of harm is evident.

D. Henigan, Victims' Litigation Targets Gun Violence. Trial, (Feb. 1995).

This article looks at the movement within the judiciary toward "fashioning a common law of accountability that recognizes that the inherent danger of firearms justifies a higher standard of conduct." This development has led to owner liability for improperly stored guns used in accidental shootings by minors, retailer liability for negligent or illegal gun sales, and manufacturer liability for the manufacture and sale of guns having no legitimate purpose that are used in crimes.

M. Polston, Suing Firearm Dealers for Gunshot Injuries - Liability Without Defect, Product Liability Law Reporter, Vol 13, (July 1994).

Federal, state and local laws provide attorneys with the prospect of successfully suing gun dealers for sales of non-defective guns where customers subsequently use the guns in crimes, suicides or negligent acts. The author examines several cases to demonstrate the viability of this approach to holding gun dealers liable for gun-related violence.

D. Henigan, Gun Control Through Tort Law, Legal Times, (August 19, 1991)

Once the exception to the rule, the trend towards holding dealers accountable when an irresponsible gun sale leads to violence, is slowly building momentum. The author refers to several cases that indicate a willingness of courts to apply negligence principles in ways that punish the gun industry for wrongful conduct of individual dealers.

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