Judge dismisses suit against maker of gun used in killings

     Associated Press
      SAN FRANCISCO -- In an abrupt turnabout, a judge dismissed lawsuits Tuesday against the manufacturer of semiautomatic weapons used in a mass killing in a San Francisco law office in 1993.
      Superior Court Judge James Warren had ruled two years ago that victims and their survivors could try to prove that the Florida-based manufacturer, Navegar Inc., had designed a product for mass killing and marketed it in a way that would appeal to criminals. It would have been the nation's first trial of a damage suit by shooting victims against an assault weapons maker.
      But on Tuesday, Warren said the plaintiffs had failed to produce evidence that gunman Gian Luigi Ferri had seen any of Navegar's California advertisements for the weapons before buying them at two Las Vegas pawnshops. Even if the California ads violated a state law against assault weapons, Warren said, there was no connection between them and the shootings.
      He noted that the guns were manufactured legally in Florida and sold legally in Las Vegas. Without any direct involvement in illegal activity in California, Warren said, a gun manufacturer is not responsible for a criminal shooting in California, even if arguably foreseeable from the nature of the product.
      "In case after case, jurisdiction after jurisdiction, courts have refused to impose a duty upon manufacturers of firearms not to sell their products merely because of the potential misuse of the product by a third party," Warren wrote.
      Ferri, a deranged man with a grudge against lawyers, entered a downtown high-rise building with two high-powered pistols in July 1993, killed eight people and wounded six before killing himself.
      Warren had ruled in 1995 that the guns appeared to be among those banned by a 1989 California law, a fact that could be used to prove they were a dangerous product whose foreseeable misuse was grounds for damages. But the judge said Tuesday he had been wrong in his analysis of the state law.
      The law "does not in fact outlaw the sale or ownership of assault weapons in California," Warren wrote. "The Legislature had sought to limit the use of these weapons in California, but the device through which they did so ... is functionally flawed."
      He did not explain his statement, apart from noting that Navegar's lawyer had recently bought a pistol in Los Angeles like the ones Ferri used.
      A lawyer for a gun-control organization that represented some of the plaintiffs said he was puzzled by Warren's discussion of the law.
      "It's certainly something that the Court of Appeal needs to take a close look at," said Dennis Henigan of the Washington, D.C.-based Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. He said the law, contrary to Warren's statement, "bans the manufacture, sale and possession of assault weapons," including Navegar's TEC-DC9.
      He also said there was strong evidence connecting Ferri's purchase of the guns with Navegar's advertising of the weapons to the "firepower market."
      "He bought (the TEC-DC9) because of its firepower, and he used it to kill all these people," Henigan said.
      The suit accused Navegar of using a marketing approach that would appeal to criminals, citing the company's promotional statement that the pistol was fingerprint-resistant and a statement to distributors that the gun was "as tough as your toughest customer."
      Investigators found a Navegar catalog in Ferri's Woodland Hills apartment, along with some issues of Soldier of Fortune magazine, in which the TEC-DC9 was regularly advertised. But Warren said no Navegar advertisements were found in the apartment and there was no direct evidence that a California advertisement prompted Ferri to go to Nevada and buy the guns.
      Ernest Getto, Navegar's lawyer, was unavailable for comment.
      But a gun industry group praised the ruling.
      "Navegar could not foresee, predict nor prevent the criminal acts of a madman," Richard J. Feldman, executive director of the Atlanta-based American Shooting Sports Council, said in a statement.
      "These lawsuits are examples of misdirected efforts that refuse to hold the individual responsible for his or her misdeeds. Instead, they further the goals of those who cast about looking for someone else to blame."