Jersey City Files New Lawsuit Against Industry
In a move that seems like a rerun of a worn-out script, the mayor of Jersey City, NJ, filed a lawsuit on March 28 against the firearms industry, seeking to hold gunmakers responsible for criminal violence.
Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham filed his lawsuit against several manufacturers despite meetings held in late 2001 with gun industry representatives. Named as defendants in the lawsuit are several top gun companies, including: Beretta USA Corp.; Glock; Smith & Wesson, and Colt’s Manufacturing.
Whether Cunningham, a former US Marshal and police captain, and the first African-American elected as Jersey City’s mayor, is looking for publicity as an anti-gun leader, or just to deflect attention from a nasty feud between him and a local Democratic Party official is unclear. But the lawsuit brought an immediate response from the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) Alan Gottlieb, who called it a waste of taxpayers money.
“Despite industry efforts and all the court precedents in this arena,” Gottlieb observed, “Mayor Cunningham decided to sue anyway. Unfortunately for the citizens of Jersey City, this will not be a ‘cheap’ headline. It is going to get very expensive.”
Gottlieb pointed to the city of Boston, MA, which dropped its anti-gun lawsuit on March 28, after being beaten in court. The city spent an estimated $500,000 on that legal action and was criticized in a Boston Herald editorial, which called the lawsuit “an expensive publicity stunt. . . .”
Ironically, Cunningham succeeded Bret Schundler as Jersey City mayor. Schundler, a Republican, ran unsuccessfully for governor last year and one of the issues that defeated him was gun control. Schundler ran as a “pro-gun” candidate, but many hard-core gun rights activists in the Garden State branded him an anti-gunner. The split was enough to allow Democrat Jim McGreevey to bury Schundler with innuendo and handily beat him at the polls.
Whether Cunningham is merely trying to make his mark as an anti-gun Democrat, or focus attention away from his political battles, SAF’s Gottlieb is not impressed with the lawsuit.
The heart of Jersey City’s lawsuit is virtually the same as some 30 other legal actions. Cunningham is claiming that gun makers have adopted marketing and distribution practices that contribute to gun-related murders, suicides and accidents.
Lawrence G. Keane, vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said in a prepared statement, “We are surprised and disappointed that Jersey City is choosing expensive and time-consuming litigation rather than following Boston’s leadership to embrace cooperation and communication as the best way to reduce the criminal and accidental misuse of firearms, goals our industry has long supported. . . .There is nothing that Jersey City will discover in the litigation process that the city of Boston has not already seen, all of which failed to help Boston prove its case.”