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Reason on gun & product liability litigation

Walter Olson has "Dangerous When in Power: Does government protect us from hazardous products, or does it put us in harm's way?" in Reason Online. An interesting note:

"The resale of city-owned weaponry-police surplus, as well as guns seized from lawbreakers-is a prized cash cow for city administrations. New Orleans, for example, at the very moment of announcing its first-in-the-country suit against gunmakers, had just finished scoring one of the biggest gun-resale deals ever when it sold through a broker some 7,300 guns, including TEC-9s and various other semiautomatics whose importation and manufacture Congress had banned in 1994. Detroit unloaded a remarkable 13-plus tons of weaponry not long before filing its suit. ...Were the lawyers' theories to be taken seriously, the cities might have to worry about winding up in court as defendants, not plaintiffs."

· Gun manufacturer liability