http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010806/ts/guns_court_dc.html

Monday August 6 1:33 PM ET

Calif. High Court Finds Gunmaker Not Liable

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In a major defeat for gun control advocates, California's Supreme Court ruled on Monday that firearms manufacturers cannot be held legally responsible for the criminal use of their weapon.

The Supreme Court justices found that Miami-based Navegar Inc. could not be sued over a 1993 attack in which a disgruntled businessman used a Navegar-made TEC-DC9 military assault pistol to kill nine people, including himself, in a San Francisco office building.

With its decision, the California court joins a growing list of federal and state courts which have ruled against liability for gunmakers -- undercutting gun control activists who want to sue them for what they see as negligence in marketing weapons used in crimes.

The California case, thrown out of court in 1997, was reinstated by a state appeals court two years later which said it was conceivable that Navegar had been negligent in promoting the TEC-DC9, a weapon frequently used in crime and part of the arsenal used by teenage killers in the Columbine High School massacre.

In its 5-1 decision Monday, however, the state's top court said Navegar could not found negligent ``because the Legislature has declared as a matter of public policy that a gun manufacturer may not be held liable.''

-- (in@the.news), August 06, 2001