In Philadelphia, Mayor Rendell had a similar lawsuit drafted earlier this year, then decided to hold off filing it to allow time for a group of cities including Philadelphia to negotiate with gun manufacturers about possible restrictions on gun sales.
Shortly after Rendell announced that decision, Daley said Chicago would go ahead and file a lawsuit of its own, which it did yesterday.
An industry spokesman dismissed Chicago's suit as groundless, noting that gun manufacturers and distributors were part of a federal program that requires gun purchasers to pass background checks.
``Whose responsibility is that when someone purchases a firearm illegally in the city?'' asked Robert Delfay, president of the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute in Newtown, Conn. ``That can't go back to the manufacturer.''
In Chicago, it is illegal to possess a handgun unless it was registered prior to March 30, 1982, and there are no gun shops. Despite that, Chicago police lead the nation in gun seizures, having confiscated 175,866 guns since 1989. In 1997, Chicago recorded more than 17,000 robberies, batteries and assaults in which a handgun was used.
``We are going to force the gun industry to come to grips with what they are doing,'' Daley said at a news conference, brushing aside concerns about constitutional guarantees while predicting suits soon would be filed by other cities. ``We want to force the gun industry to sit down face to face with the families of undercover policemen who were killed by their products; to sit down face to face with policemen who want to know why they manufacture bullets which shatter police vests and pierce the doors of their cars.''
The Chicago suit differs from one against gun manufacturers recently filed by the City of New Orleans. There, the city contends gun-makers are liable because their products are designed and built in a negligent manner, making them dangerous to use. The manufacturers fail to take advantage of technology that would prevent anyone but the registered owner from firing the weapon, the suit says.
``This is not a product-liability suit,'' Daley said, adding that the ``problem is the guns work all too well.''
Chicago's chief lawyer, Brian Crowe, said that one argument in the suit was that manufacturers design their products for criminals and market them to criminals.
``These are not for protection. These are not for defense,'' Crowe said of such guns, including those with magazines holding up to 100 bullets or those with laser sights. ``The . . . firepower and concealability are [only] benefits in the commission of a crime.''
In addition, Daley argued that suburban gun dealers ``defy the law'' in selling to individuals they know are reselling guns illegally in the city, and that distributors flood gun shops in suburban areas where they know the excessively large demand comes from criminals inside the city.
``The gun manufacturers are saturating gun stores just outside Chicago's border with far more guns than the lawful gun market could possibly absorb, because they know there is a large, illegal gun market in the city,'' Crowe said.
The suit came as a result of a two-month investigation in which three teams of undercover policemen bought 171 guns, often illegally, in 12 suburban gun shops. The gun shops were targeted after police traced the purchase of a high percentage of the illegal guns they confiscated on Chicago's streets back to those shops, including a revolver used to kill a Chicago policeman in August.
In many cases the police say they bought guns at the shops even after making it ``perfectly clear'' they intended to use the weapons for illegal purposes. In some cases the police identified themselves as gang members who needed the guns to ``settle their business,'' according to Chicago Police Cmdr. Harvey Radney, who led the investigation.
``In one case we had a salesman at a gun shop try to sell us bullets with soft noses that expand by saying, and I quote, `They won't go through the target and kill a little girl on the next block,' '' Radney said.
The news conference also included a videotape of policemen allegedly buying guns illegally from two gun shops.
``These types of weapons should not be on the streets, not only in Chicago but in America,'' Daley said, his voice rising. ``I get along with the NRA [National Rifle Association], but people who defend these types of weapons - let them have someone with this type of weapon walk down their streets.''
In Baltimore yesterday, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said he had asked the city solicitor to study the legal theories with an eye toward filing a similar lawsuit.
