accountability of gun manufacturers

The Fox case jury found a dozen gun makers guilty of negligent distribution. The shooter's gun was never found. Unable to determine which company made the gun that fired the bullet into Fox's head, the jury ordered all the makers of .25 caliber weapons in the case to pony up $5 million for Fox's care and pain.

Fox's victory burst the dam. Several hundred lawyers - including the Costanza group, the combine of firms that mangled the tobacco industry - filed suits to make sure the gun industry feels our pain. New Orleans was the first of thirty cities in court demanding that gun purveyors pay the cost of gathering the wounded off the streets, and the cost of arming the municipal police force in self-defense. The legal profession might have finally accomplished what a cowering Congress dare not consider: shutting down firearms sales at source.

The NAACP weighed in with a massive class-action suit on behalf of thousands of the wounded and dead, based on yet another theory: product liability. I spoke to one of their counsel, Mike Hausfeld, just after he returned from beating Hitler in a US courtroom.

Fifty years after WWII, Hausfeld's firm brought a suit against Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, BASF and others who used slave labor from concentration and prison camps under the Nazi regime. The defendants agreed to create a $1.2 billion compensation fund.

Hausfeld concedes the companies were acting under orders of the Reich, but points out: "Contemporary industrial empires were made from those profits. In 1938 Henry Ford received a medal from the Führer, and his German plants continued to provide Ford income through 1942. Those profits belong to the victims."

Hitler's manufacturers finally coughed up their blood money when the defense, "We were only taking orders," failed to impress US judges.

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