Gun Industry Research Articles

A Judicial Teaching Point: The Lesson of the Late Justice John Paul Stevens in Sony V. Universal City Studios as a Response to Civil Lawfare

Gun-control proponents, unable to enact their favored gun control measures via democratic means, often engage in lawfare against gun manufacturers and distributors — i.e., warfare by means of litigation and other legal processes, designed to penalize financially such businesses with a view toward putting them out of business altogether. Courts presiding over these cases should take a lesson from the late Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. He authored the 1984 decision in Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 ( the “Betamax” case), in which movie production companies tried to use the courts — and not the legislature — to outlaw the selling of video cassette records, or VCRs, on the grounds that they could be used by criminals to infringe upon the studios’ copyrights. The Supreme Court’s ruling in that case, which refused to hold sellers of VCRs liable for the harms caused by third-party misuse of the product, is equally applicable to manufacturers of firearms that some seek to ban. Just as VCRs were widely and predominantly used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes in the 1980s and 1990s, the same can be said for firearms today. Justice Stevens, who decades later advocated for the repeal of the Second Amendment, sat in the same seat as today’s judges before whom warfare against the gun industry is currently being waged. But when the studios sought to accomplish through the courts what they could not accomplish through the legislature (the imposition of financially devasting legal liability arising from the conduct of unaffiliated third parties), Justice Stevens and our highest court said, “No.” In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (“PLCAA”), which was inspired by the same sentiment implicit in the Justice Stevens’s Betamax ruling, i.e., the desire to stem the tide of liability suits against gunmakers and sellers for the criminal misuse of guns by individuals over whom the gun manufacturers had no control or relationship. Recently, litigants have tried (with some success) to exploit loopholes in the PLCAA. Such lawsuits are not necessarily meant to win in court. They are often motivated partially, if not entirely, by political desires to rid American society of gun manufacturers by intentionally and effectively driving them out of business due to the onerous cost of civil lawfare. If successful, the gun control lobby will have succeeded in accomplishing through the courts something that they were unable to accomplish in the legislative or political sphere: eliminating the manufacture and sale of firearms in the United States. The Betamax decision represents an important — but, until now, mostly overlooked — judicial teaching moment. Justice Stevens’ reasoning and the language and purpose of the PLCAA should be considered by today’s courts when deciding lawsuits against the gun industry for harms caused by criminal third parties.

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USING THE ARMS TREADE TREATY TO ADDRESS PARTORALIST CONFLICT AND WILDLIFE CRIME IN KENYA’S MARGINALIZED REGIONS

Respostas militarizadas ao conflito em área pastoril e aos crimes contra a vida selvagem no Quênia - incluindo o colapso de populações de elefantes e rinocerontes - muitas vezes não atendem aos padrões de direitos humanos e prejudicam as capacidades locais de sustentabilidade, paz e meios de subsistência alternativos. A repressão do Estado encoraja a violência extrajudicial e introduz novas armas que muitas vezes entram ilicitamente no mercado. Este artigo descreve abordagens alternativas enraizadas nos direitos humanos, no Estado de Direito e na cooperação e assistência internacionais, incluindo o uso de instrumentos regionais que regulam o comércio de armas pequenas e leves (SALW, na sigla em inglês para Small Arms and Light Weapons), incluindo o Tratado de Comércio de Armas (ATT, na sigla em inglês para Arms Trade Treaty) de 2013. O artigo baseia-se no trabalho de campo no Quênia e na observação participante na defesa do ATT.

Correction

In the Jan. 28 lead article, “MHA, gun industry partnership aims to conduct outreach, prevent suicide,” the comment by Debbie Plotnick, “We partnered with them because it's time to start talking about each other and talking to each other,” should have read, “We partnered with them because it's time to stop talking about each other and start talking to each other.” MHW apologizes for the error.

MHA, gun industry partnership aims to conduct outreach, prevent suicide

Rather than work separately to address issues related to mental health and guns, Mental Health America (MHA) and Walk the Talk America (WTTA) announced Jan. 22 a partnership to prevent suicide death by firearms and create materials to conduct outreach to gun ranges across the country. In joining forces to combat suicide, both organizations will share information about depression and warning signs that someone may be considering suicide.

Dünya Silah Sanayisini Şekillendiren Bir Osmanlı Rumu: Basil Zaharoff

Basil Zaharoff was born in 1849 in Muğla. The information about Zaharoff’s identity is various, but it is known that he spent his youth in Istanbul, Tatavla (Kurtuluş). He learned foreign languages in his youth and completed his education in English School with a scholarship. While working his uncle’s shop, Zaharoff stole the money he thought belonging to him and escaped to London to start his new life. After working several gun companies and getting into partnerships, he became rich in a short period of time. The reputation that he acquired in gun industry provided him to contact with the politicians of the period. The period when militarism was on the rise, he became the baron of the gun industry. Zaharoff supported his homeland, Greece, economically and militarily. He, as a financier, supported the participation of Greece to the World War I and the Greek soldiers’ attempt to capture İzmir. Zaharoff who did not reveal the details of his identity was called “Mysterious European” began to work as an advisor for the great powers’ politicians. In addition to the gun industry, he made his reputation in petrol and casino fields and died in 1936 in Monte Carlo.In this paper, the Ottoman non-Muslim Basil Zaharoff, who fueled militarism, supported Greece economically and had an influence on the world order during the period of wars will be examined in the light of archives, The New York Times newspaper and secondary sources. 

Smart Guns, the Law, and the Second Amendment

Smart guns, which originally meant personalized guns that only the owner could fire, had a false start as a promising new technology several years ago. Nevertheless, policymakers have shown renewed interest in the wake of highly publicized incidents of gun violence, as well as advances in technology. The first generation of smart guns foundered on problems with the reliability of the technology, as well as a legislative misstep that would have banned all other guns as soon as smart guns appeared in the retail market, triggering massive boycotts of certain manufacturers and dealers, and a subsequent abandonment of the project by the gun industry overall. Newer technologies, however, such as improved biometric grip identifiers, precision-guided rifles that rarely miss, blockchain or “glockchain” automated tracking, and optical scopes that send videos to smart phones, have revived interest in the products. At least one state in 2019 (NJ) passed carefully drafted legislation promoting the introduction of personalized guns, while another (AZ) passed legislation discouraging the adoption of digital ledgering technology for firearms. In addition, some leading candidates in the 2020 primary have advocated for smart guns as a solution to gun violence. This paper will explore the emerging second-generation smart gun technology, its potential for adoption by the military, law enforcement, and civilian markets, and the realistic prospects for improvements in safety or reduction in gun violence. This discussion will include the disconnect between policy agendas regarding firearm safety and technological enhancements driven by current consumer demand – and the murky moral assumptions that undergird both.

SMALL ARMS PROLIFERATION, ETHNO-COMMUNAL CONFLICT, AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT: OKE-OGUN AREA OF OYO STATE, NIGERIA IN FOCUS

Small arms proliferation and ethno-communal conflict is growing social menace in Nigeria, which has resulted to severe loss of lives (especially, children and women), destruction of properties and unstable socio-economic environment needed for rapid economic development in the country. Against this background, this study examined the relationship between small arms proliferation, ethno-communal conflict and underdevelopment. The study adopted survey research design. The strain theory by Robert K. Merton was adopted as theoretical guide. Data were gathered from both primary and secondary sources. Stratified and purposive sampling technique was adopted in selecting one thousand, one hundred and fifty two (1152) respondents from the three local government areas in the study area. The obtained data were statistically analysed using linear regression. The result obtained from the analysis of data indicates that, there is a significant relationship between proliferation of small arms (such as AK-47, double barrel, G-3, AKM) ethno-communal conflict and, underdevelopment. The Federal Government of Nigeria and other stakeholders in conflict management should adopt preventive approach in handling conflict in the country. Article visualizations:

Resolving the Illicit Trade of Small Arms and Light Weapon through ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (AMMTC)

This paper analyses the cooperation of states in Southeast Asia within the framework established by ASEAN, that is ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (AMMTC) to resolving the illicit trade of Small Arms and Light Weapon in the region. Most of existing works on the topic being studied put emphasize on the importance of the existence of norms, the role of institutions and security cooperation in resolving the illicit weapons trade. However, the existing studies have not explained why the existing form of cooperation has not been effective. By the approaching of international regime theory, this article explains the interest based of regime that explain the background of regime formation which could influence state behavior to cooperate and successfully implement the rules of the international regime itself. The research applying qualitative research methods with data sourced from primary and secondary data from ASEAN official documents, books, journals, online news. This article shows that the effectivity of AMMTC to deal with the illicit Small Arms Trade is strongly influenced by the implementation commitment of the state members.

Priorities in Recovering From a Lost Generation of Firearms Research.

An editorial is presented which addresses firearms research in America as of 2018, and it mentions gun-related violence in the U.S., media coverage of mass shootings, and school shootings at places such as Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. Lobbyists for the firearms industry are examined, along with support for gun safety reform. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and population health research are assessed.

Arms proliferation and the crisis of cult supremacy and insecurity in Ogoniland Nigeria

This study examined the nexus between arms proliferation and the crisis of cult supremacy and insecurity in Ogoniland of Rivers State. It adopted the Anomie Theory as propounded by Emile Durkheim and Strain Theory of Crime by Robert Merton. The central thrust of these theories is that attention is focused on the relationship between a person’s socio economic condition and the possibility that the person would commit either crime or delinquency. The study argues that the vulnerable economically misbalance youth population took advantage of the porous nature of the waterways and engaged in arms struggle in the area. This is due to the lack of functional institutional framework to regulate the trade in illicit arms especially in the Niger Delta region, which is responsible for the influx of small arms and light weapon into the hands of non-state actors. This has generated persistent crises and insecurity among communities and the different cult groups over territorial supremacy in Ogoniland. The study also reveals that the political actors in the area equally mastermind cult related crisis for the purpose of political dominance. The study posits that only structured and sustainable policies and empowerment programmes can help to reduce cult crisis and insecurity in Ogoniland of Rivers state. The study recommends that government should initiate a functional strategy of controlling the trade in small arms and light weapons. Equally security at the borders and along the waterways in Ogoniland should be strengthened to check in inflow of arms.

Tanzania: Small Arms Proliferation in East Africa and National Security

This article examines the effects of the proliferation of small arms on Tanzania’s national security. Engaging the security dilemma theory, regional security complex theory and ideas about state weakness, the paper argues that the prevalence of small arms in Tanzania negatively shape the social, economic and political milieu with profound consequences for the stability and security of the country and region both in the short and longterm. While Tanzania continues to be relatively stable, it suffers from the proliferation of small arms. This may erode its long observed image as the anchor of East African stability if not urgently addressed. The paper concludes that Tanzania has both strengths or successes and weaknesses in its efforts to mitigate the small arms challenge in which the former need to be strengthened to avert the country’s image of peace and stability in East Africa from becoming an illusion.

Torts and Guns

When Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders squabbled during their 2015-16 election campaigns over the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCCA), they were talking past each other, misleading their listeners, and failing to understand what this statute pre-empting some state tort claims against the gun industry was actually about. Many critics of PLCCA argue that gun makers and sellers should be liable just like those in the auto, pharmaceutical drug, and tobacco industries. Yet, it is very rare for defendants in those industries to be successfully sued in tort for the sort of conduct that gun control advocates would like to hold the gun industry liable. In contrast to the hopes and fears of Clinton and Sanders, repealing PLCCA would not likely result in a burst of successful lawsuits, although some might be winners. Perhaps potential and actual tort litigation against this industry is better understood as part of a longer term battle over public opinion and eventual legislative reform.

From the Civil War to the Age of Terror: A Historical Analysis of Patterns of Small Arms Proliferation in Nigeria

Distinct patterns of small arms proliferation have emerged over four decades of Nigeria’s turbulent history. Each pattern is essentially qualified by its primary source and sustained by the viability of such sources. The paper essentially identifies three patterns namely conflict, state security and local economic patterns of small arms proliferation. It attempts an analysis of the determinant factors behind the volume of each pattern and argues that proliferation levels change with the dominant patterns and as such control measures can also adopt methods reflecting the nature and patterns of small arms proliferation. This is because each pattern provides a unique control approach. A massive flow of weapons was recorded during the Nigerian Civil War, however the state security and conflict patterns that this early levels of proliferation adopted made control more effective over a given period. This however cannot be said for more recent local economic patterns of proliferation that have become pronounced due to the parallel growth in the other two patterns. The paper advocates that control strategies focused on local craft and state production may significantly impact Small arms and Light weapons control in Nigeria.

Broadening the Perspective on Gun Violence: An Examination of the Firearms Industry, 1990–2015

Firearm violence injures or kills 100,000 Americans each year. This paper applies the Host-Agent-Vector-Environment model to this issue. Research on firearm violence tends to focus on two elements-the host (i.e., victims of firearm violence) and the environment (i.e., gun policies)-but little attention has been paid to the agent (the gun and ammunition) or the vector (firearm manufacturers, dealers, and the industry lobby). Using Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives data, trends in firearm manufacturing were investigated from 1990 to 2015. Outcome measures included: (1) trends in domestic gun manufacturing by weapon type; (2) trends in production by firearm caliber; and (3) 2015 market share by type of firearm and company. Data were collected and analyzed in 2016. Overall domestic firearms production decreased slightly from 1996 through 2004, and then steadily increased from 1.7% in 2005 to 13.8% in 2013, when >10 million firearms were produced for the domestic market. The increase in total firearm production was driven by the increased production of pistols and rifles. Within the pistol category, increased production was attributable to an increase in higher caliber weapons. Similar trends were observed in gun purchases and recovered and traced crime guns. Trends in firearm manufacturing reveal a shift toward more-lethal weapons, and this trend is also observed in gun purchases and crime gun traces. This may reflect a societal shift in cultural practices and norms related to guns and could inform strategies to reduce firearm violence.

Torts and Guns

Abstract When Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders squabbled during their 2015-16 election campaigns over the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), they were talking past each other, misleading their listeners, and failing to understand what this statute pre-empting some state tort claims against the gun industry was actually about. Many critics of PLCAA argue that gun makers and sellers should be liable just like those in the auto, pharmaceutical drug, and tobacco industries. Yet, it is very rare for defendants in those industries to be successfully sued in tort for the sort of conduct that gun control advocates would like to hold the gun industry liable. In contrast to the hopes and fears of Clinton and Sanders, repealing PLCAA would not likely result in a burst of successful lawsuits, although some might be winners. Perhaps potential and actual tort litigation against this industry is better understood as part of a longer term battle over public opinion and eventual legislative reform.

Legacies of Violence

Civil wars have a tendency to spread across borders. In several instances of conflict diffusion, however, conflicts spread well after their cessation at home. Whereas existing diffusion research has not attached much importance to this observation, I argue that these conflicts are instances of a broader pattern of postconflict diffusion. Wars are particularly prone to spread after termination because the end of fighting generates a surplus of weapons, combatants, and rebel leaders whose fortunes are tied to the continuation of violence. Some of these resources circulate throughout the region via the small arms trade and through transnational rebel networks, making this a time at which it should be easier for nonstate groups in the neighborhood to build a capable rebel army. The results from two complementary statistical tests on global conflict data provide strong support for such a postconflict diffusion effect.

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act: Precipitating the Worldds Most Dangerous Game

After Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School on the morning of December 14, 2012, twenty-six people, many of them children, were killed, with more injured. Before that day, Lanza’s mother bought a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, model XM15-E2S, for the purpose of giving it to her son. The weapon was produced by Bushmaster Firearms, marketed by Remington Outdoor Company, distributed by Camfour, Inc., and sold to civilians by Riverview Sales, Inc. In their thirty-three-count amended complaint, the victims and families of the Sandy Hook Shooting attempted to use the predicate exemption and negligent entrustment exceptions to the qualified civil immunity granted to the gun industry by the passage of 2005’s Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to obtain relief for the wrongful death of their loved ones. Their claims became Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms Int’l, where the court found that the harm caused was solely the result of criminal misuse of a weapon, falling within the “broad immunity provided by the PLCAA.” Despite the fact that the weapon was intended for military use and has little utility for hunting or self-defense, the court found that the placement of this item in the stream of commerce did not create a harm remediable despite the dangerousness of the product. Were it not for the PLCAA, the plaintiffs may have prevailed on their claim. When an inherently dangerous item, like a military-grade assault rifle, is able to exist in the market virtually free from regulations and the manufacturers, sellers, and advertisers are immune from liability for the harms inherent in the nature of the product, the purpose of tort law – to compensate for harms caused by the actions of another for the purpose of producing efficient outcomes and deterring aberrant behavior with the ultimate goal of creating a safer society – is obfuscated. The PLCAA was passed as a knee-jerk reaction to the advent of mass tort gun liability suits brought by municipalities to curb the illegal practices of local arms dealers and mitigate the harms levied on their communities by gun violence. Although none of these suits were successful, the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights lobbies felt sufficiently threatened that they asked for and received broad immunity to curb potential claims. Through an investigation of pre-PLCAA litigation, the PLCAA, and the post-PLCAA landscape, it becomes evident that the PLCAA is overbroad legislation that impermissibly shields producers of an inherently dangerous product from liability.

Gun Culture in Early Modern England. By Lois G. Schwoerer

In this wide-ranging and ambitious book, Lois G. Schwoerer attempts to establish the existence of a “gun culture” in early modern England. The various chapters cover a number of themes which together, on Schwoerer’s account, demonstrate not only that there was a gun culture on early modern England but also that this culture was a phenomenon of considerable importance. She stresses that the government attempted to restrict the possession and use of guns to the relatively wealthy after 1514, which produced a distinctively English gun culture. She argues that the employment of guns for military purposes increased interest in guns and their use among the population at large, suggesting that returning soldiers (and certainly their officers) transferred their knowledge of and enthusiasm for firearms into civilian life. Men, and to a lesser extent women, participated in the burgeoning firearms industry, and Schwoerer is especially interesting when tracing the struggle of The Worshipful Company of Gunmakers to achieve recognition as well as the development of the government’s Ordnance Office. She demonstrates how gunmaking and gunfounding in London developed into an industry which affected the capital’s topography and economy. She also makes original and interesting analyses of guns in contemporary portraiture, guns as an element in gift exchange, and the apparently widespread existence of toy or miniature guns as children’s playthings, which, Schwoerer suggests, modifies our perception of early modern childhood. The closing chapter develops some of the suggestions she made on Article VII of the 1689 Bill of Rights in her 1981 book on the Declaration of Rights. She argues here that Article VII took a very limited interpretation of which of William and Mary’s Protestant subjects had the right to bear arms, and hence, despite claims to the contrary, was of minimal importance to the framing of the United States’ Second Amendment.

Whither the Arc of the Moral Universe?

Whither the Arc of the Moral Universe? Robert H. Churchill (bio) Pamela Haag. The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture. New York: Basic Books, 2016. xxv + 496 pp. Figures, notes, and index. $29.99. Pamela Haag has taken on a very ambitious project. She sets out to trace the influence of gun manufacturers on U.S. gun culture. What emerges from that quest is at once a business history of arms manufacturing, a cultural analysis of the figure of the “lone gunman” as a heroic figure, and an exploration of an early countercultural outcry against the moral toxicity of the gun trade. All three aspects of the book are provocative, but they are not equally successful. Moreover, the book raises the question of whether there are limits to the creative imagining that should be employed in a work that purports to be a nonfiction history. In the first section of the book, Haag argues that the concept of interchangeability better describes the place of guns in America than celebrations of the gun as the exceptional icon of an exceptional people. She maintains that, prior to the Civil War, guns were treated largely as tools, one consumer product of many, and held no special significance in culture, law, or social identity. In other words, in this period, America had no gun culture. She notes that early gun manufacturers got their start producing guns for the U.S. Government and that there was next to no civilian market. In this era of craft production, symbolized by Eli Whitney’s operations at the Springfield armory, gun manufacturing represented a public-private partnership, and government armories served as incubators of technological innovation. After 1840, this era gave way to entrepreneurs who separated their operations from government facilities and focused on precision machining, the division of labor, and the protection of intellectual property. These private corporations found markets hard to come by, as there was still little civilian demand for guns, and government contracts were awarded through a labyrinthine process of lobbying and corrupt influence peddling. Early entrepreneurs such as Samuel Colt turned to foreign markets in desperation. The exhibition of the American system of manufacturing at London’s Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 marked a breakthrough moment. The display of their technical [End Page 83] prowess allowed Colt and other entrepreneurs to crack the European market and reverse what had been a long-standing pattern of American imports of European arms. The second section of the book follows the trajectory of the Winchester Company between 1868 and 1925 and the family fortune that it spawned. This section constitutes a densely interwoven elaboration of several themes. The first is the influence of industrial capitalism on the manufacturing of guns. Capitalist ideology, particularly in the antebellum period and the Gilded Age, encouraged arms manufacturers to disregard the social costs of their trade, to think of their products as unexceptional and of no more moral freight than any other. The structure of the marketplace required these industrialists to build consumer demand for their products, as steady consumer demand was an absolute necessity for business survival. Companies that over-relied on military demand were repeatedly destroyed by the inevitable collapse of demand at the end of wars, just at the time the debts the companies had accumulated to increase production to meet war demand came due. Foreign sales might help stave off disaster, but these too could vanish in the blink of an eye. Only those companies that successfully stimulated consumer demand for guns remained solvent through these boom-and-bust cycles. A second theme is the gun industry’s role in propagating the cultural icon of the lone gunman, which Haag argues is at the core of contemporary U.S. gun culture. She traces the industry’s influence across three periods: 1868–90, 1890–1914, and 1917–21. In the first period, Winchester envisioned a civilian market segmented into farmers, hunters, frontiersmen, and urbanites concerned with self-protection. Extolling the speed and accuracy of his 1873-model repeating rifle, Winchester described the power it gave to the individual faced with numerous targets, both animal and human. In Haag’s words, “it would...