Amoral Industry Should Pay Plenty Sue Gun Makers Industry Profits From Bloodshed.

American cities have been riddled by gun violence in the past decade.

City residents watched helplessly as gun deaths mounted within urban neighborhoods. In 1996 alone, 34,030 people died of gunshot wounds in the United States. City budgets have been hit hard by related expenses: the cost of police investigations, ambulance rides and trauma counseling.

All of these expenses - and the incalculable loss of human life - mounted during a time when gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association effectively thwarted state legislators and Congress from passing tough gun-control laws.

Now cities are shaking that paralysis and pursuing a creative new course: They’re filing lawsuits against gun manufacturers themselves. It’s this industry, after all, that profits twice through gun-related crime. First, it profits by selling guns to criminals. According to studies by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, as many as half the handguns used in crimes were bought from licensed dealers within the previous three years.

The gun industry profits a second time by fostering a fear of crime and convincing law-abiding citizens to buy guns for protection.

Those who rest more easily knowing they’ve hidden a loaded gun in the bedside drawer should examine this delusion. According to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, families with a gun in the home are five times more likely to experience a suicide and three times more likely to experience a murder than other households. Their gun is 43 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than an intruder.

In the past two decades, state legislatures and Congress should have worked harder to stop the proliferation of guns in the United States and to prevent gun-related deaths. They did not.

Instead, Americans own too many guns: enough to supply one for every adult and half the children in this country. Since 1980, domestic production of pistols has more than doubled.

Now, cities are taking the same innovative approach that states used against tobacco companies: suing the industry which profits most from this horror.

These lawsuits offer hope that someday all Americans can sleep more easily at night.