Connecticut Supreme Court Upholds Dismissal
of Bridgeport's Suit Against Firearms Industry
HARTFORD, CT-Continuing a string of major defeats for municipalities
attempting to hold firearms manufacturers legally responsible
for the criminal misuse of their products, the Connecticut
Supreme Court unanimously (5-0) ruled today that the City
of Bridgeport and its Mayor, Joseph P. Ganim, could not hold
the firearms industry legally and financially responsible
for the city’s crime and social problems.
Bridgeport’s suit sought to recover municipal expenditures
related to violent crime in the city. Justice David M. Borden
said the injuries Bridgeport claimed to have suffered were
too indirect from the alleged conduct of the firearms industry.
The Court described the regulated distribution of firearms
from federally licensed manufacturers to federally licensed
distributors to federally licensed retailers and ultimately
to authorized, legitimate customers. Only when firearms are
used illegally, beyond the control of firearms manufacturers,
does Bridgeport suffer any of the harms it alleges. The Court
noted a host of factors contributing to the various harms
claimed by the city, including “the scourge of illegal drugs,
poverty, illiteracy, inadequacies in the public educational
system, the birth rates of unmarried teenagers, the disintegration
of family relationships, the decades long trend of the middle
class moving from city to suburb, the decades long movement
of industry from the northeast ‘rust belt’ to the south and
southwest, swings of the … economies, the upward track of
health costs…, unemployment and even the construction of the
national interstate highway system, to name a few.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision underscores the fallacy and
the dishonesty of attempting to blame firearms manufacturers
for crime and violence which results from complex social factors
that Bridgeport and other municipalities suing our industry
have failed to effectively address,” commented Robert T. Delfay,
president and chief executive officer of the National Shooting
Sports Foundation, Inc.
Bridgeport joins Camden County, NJ, Chicago, Cincinnati,
Gary, OH, Miami, New Orleans, New York State and Philadelphia
in having their politically motivated lawsuits to hold a responsible
industry accountable for the criminal misuse of firearms dismissed.
Other major decisions handed down in recent months include
the dismissal by New York’s highest court of Hamilton vs.
Accu-tek, the first major lawsuit attempting to hold responsible
firearms manufacturer responsible for the criminal misuse
of a legally sold and non-defective product and the dismissal
by the California Supreme Court of Merrill v. Navegar,
a lawsuit that sought to hold against a manufacturer of a
firearm that was used by a homicidal maniac in a San Francisco
office building.
-30-
|