City of Cincinnati v. Beretta, U.S.A. Corp. Et Al. An Analysis of U.S. Lawsuits Against the Firearms Industry

Abstract

This paper stresses the need to differentiate between the decision of whether it is necessary to regulate a certain industry (like the firearm industry) and the decision of how this regulation should be accomplished. The problem presented by the litigation brought by municipalities against the firearms industry is that it confuses these two issues. These suits implicitly assume that because the fire arms industry should be regulated and should bear the costs of the harm caused by their products, there must be a legal instrument by which the courts can accomplish this Such a mechanism, however, as the regulation is now, does not exist, and consequently, the plaintiffs have had to use and to stretch the existing legal categories that are ill-suited for this task. Rather than having the courts create new legal institutions on their own, such legal categories should be created by the legislature after a public debate. Not following this process would both pervert the notion of a separation of powers and weaken the existing legal instruments and the strength and the legitimacy of the claims themselves.

Keywords: Tort law, Gun litigation, Legal theory