The law followed the shooting of Ronald Reagan and his Press Secretary Jim Brady in 1981. More than 250,000 felons, fugitives, and others have been turned down the sale of a handgun since the law was enacted. As a result of this, the country underwent an exponential growth in purchases at gun shows and flea markets, because background checks are not required.
Guns are not always purchased legally. Most guns are purchased by "straw buyers". Straw buyers are people who purchase guns and sell to those who cannot legally have them. "Basically, the gun makers supply the illegal underground market by flooding the legal market with far more guns than it can absorb," says city of Los Angeles attorney James Hahn. Many lawsuits have been filed against major gun companies because of this. The "Castano Group", a prestigious group of lawyers which have landed billion dollar settlements, are now representing the cities against the gun industry. The plaintiffs are generally charging that the gun industry is designing an unsafe product that is negligently distributed and deceptively marketed. Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation in Bellvue, Washington says," What they are doing is like trying to sue General Motors for a bank robbery simply because the getaway car was a chevy." He believes the companies should not be held responsible for a criminal's actions (GunControl).
The fact of the matter is that guns, in general, are not safe. Many people and lawmakers argue that the last thing needed are more gun laws. The state of California has over seven hundred gun laws that do little to reduce violent crimes. "We don't need more federal laws, we need to enforce the ones we have," says the National Rifle Association's Paul Blackman (GunControl). Crime victims are more than twice as likely to walk away from a criminal unharmed if they had a gun in self-defense. Gun control advocates say firearms are used 108,000 times a year for self-defense.
