Guns in the Courtroom

In the late summer and fall of 1997, small news leaks began appearing that Mayor Edward Rendell of Philadelphia (who is now governor of Pennsylvania) was thinking about suing the firearms industry to recover the medical costs of treating gunshot victims, much as state attorneys general had sued tobacco manufacturers. "Rendell is quietly laying the groundwork for a lawsuit against gun manufacturers," read the first report, bringing a small smile to lips of readers who realized that tipping off the press is not quite consistent with doing something quietly. The leaks provided little information but provoked a great deal of talk. What was actually going on within Rendell's inner circle, however, was shrouded in secrecy.

Then, on January 9, 1998, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Rendell's lawyers were ready to file. The article identified Temple University law school professor David Kairys and David Cohen, a partner in a leading Philadelphia law firm and one of Rendell's closest confidants, as the principal lawyers. "Kairys declined to discuss the lawsuit," the paper reported, although Kairys did talk to the paper about the legal theory of public nuisance on which, the Inquirer said, the lawsuit was to be based.

The Rendell administration never filed that lawsuit. It is my own somewhat educated guess that the leaks had come from Professor Kairys, who was fighting a losing battle with Cohen to persuade Rendell to go ahead with the litigation. Perhaps Cohen thought the lawsuit was technically weak. Or perhaps he thought it a politically foolish endeavor for a politician with statewide ambitions. Nearly 250 rural miles separate Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and nearly 165,000 voting NRA members live in Pennsylvania. In any event, there was no suit. Rendell decided instead to try to reach a deal--never ultimately brought to fruition--in which Philadelphia would not file suit in return for the gun industry's agreeing to certain reforms and the NRA's lobbying Congress to fund a special project of aggressive federal prosecutions of gun crimes in Philadelphia.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.