Congress plans to aid gun makers

Congress plans to aid gun makers

By Steve Schifferes BBC News Online, Washington

Guns are popular in rural areas

The issue of gun control is returning to Congress to haunt the Democrats.

After a pause because of the concern over the Washington sniper shootings, Congressional Republicans have renewed their efforts to pass a bill that will grant gun companies immunity from prosecution in the courts.

The bill, which has just been approved by the House Judiciary Committee, is attracting support from some rural Democrats in constituencies where hunting is a deep-seated tradition.

The legislation seeks to prevent victims of handgun violence from suing gun makers for not adding safety features to guns and for making their distribution too easy.

The gun makers' lobby says that the threat of the lawsuits could put many small firms out of business.

Increasing controversy

The civil rights group NAACP has sued 165 gun manufacturers, as it seeks damages for the costs of gun violence.

Its president, Kweisi Mfume, says that "some in Congress, goaded by the gun lobby, are determined to slam the courthouse door in the face of current and future victims of gun violence".

But Lawrence Keane, general counsel to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for gun dealers and manufacturers, says that the industry has had to pay $100m in legal fees to defend itself.

"These suits are an attempt to blame law-abiding manufacturers for the wrongdoing of criminals," he said. "It's like blaming a drunk-driving accident on General Motors."

'Tort reform'

The legislation is part of a general trend on the part of the Bush administration to curb the role of the courts in regulating business.

Mr Bush has pushed Congress to limit damages in medical malpractice suits, arguing that it is preventing doctors from practicing in some states.

And he has advocated "tort reform" to limit the size of class action lawsuits in areas like tobacco, where companies like Philip Morris have faced potentially billions of dollars in damages.

And Democrats who supported gun control have often been punished at the ballot box.

In the 2000 election, Mr Bush won a key Democrat-leaning state, West Virginia, partly because he opposed gun control, and the Republicans gained control of the Maryland governorship last year on the same issue.

"The Democrats have found that being aggressive advocates of gun control has not worked for them," said Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, a co-sponsor of the bill with 52 other Senators.

But Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island said that "toys are more heavily regulated than guns, and there is no immunity for the toy industry against litigation."

Like abortion, the issue sharply divides the electorate on cultural rather than economic grounds, with strongly religious rural areas far more in favour of gun use than urban, secular parts of the country.