Suing, or Taxing, the Gun Makers Let gun owners be sued. That's a fairer and simpler way to use civil liability to bring down gun deaths than the two proposals on your June 24 Op-Ed page ("Let Shooting Victims Sue," by Robert M. Morgenthau, and "Make Gun Companies Pay Blood Money," by Lucinda M. Finley and John G. Culhane). Gun owners won't have the money when sued? No problem: require that they have liability insurance. We don't have any issue with requiring car owners to have insurance. Some other countries require liability insurance for guns. We can, too. The writer is an associate professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Devotion of so much space to those who argue that somebody must pay serves only the plaintiffs" bar. Thirty cities have wasted taxpayer money to sue the firearms industry, only to be reminded by courts that no liability attaches for the criminal misuse of lawfully sold, nondefective products. The Justice Department reports that firearms-related homicides declined 39 percent, while nonfatal crimes involving firearms fell 70 percent, from 1993 to 2011. During this time, the number of firearms lawfully owned by American citizens has risen markedly. We all want to see further reduction in the criminal misuse of firearms, but seeking to penalize an entire industry and, by extension, those who lawfully obtain and responsibly own its products is misdirected and wrong, if lucrative for lawyers. Focus on criminals, and crime decreases. STEPHEN L. SANETTI President and Chief Executive National Shooting Sports Foundation Newtown, Conn., June 25, 2013 Lucinda M. Finley and John G. Culhane's suggestion that the gun manufacturers be taxed for the social costs of gun violence is a good one. One question, however: In view of the National Rifle Association's multimillion-dollar campaign to defeat any such legislation, which Republican members of Congress will vote for the proposed law? Contrary to the anti-gun articles in your June 24 issue, shooting victims should not be able to sue manufacturers, distributors and retailers; the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act should stay in effect; and manufacturers and importers should not be taxed for every gun sold to create a compensation fund. Gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers operate under a comprehensive set of federal laws and various state laws and are not responsible for the actions of criminals, just as automobile manufacturers, distributors and dealers are not responsible for accidents or drunken driving. It was necessary to put the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act into effect to prevent unwarranted and misdirected lawsuits designed to drive gun manufacturers out of business, the ultimate objective of the "gun control" advocates. Gun manufacturers and importers should not be taxed on the basis of each gun sold, because law-abiding citizens who purchase guns are not responsible for the actions of criminals and should not be punished with higher prices. I wish that people in this country would stop using the term "gun violence," which mistakenly implies that guns jump up and do something by themselves, and start using the term "criminal violence," which puts the blame for the misuse of guns on the criminals. The contention that gun manufacturers should be forced to pay a tax to "internalize" the costs of gun violence is risible. Should makers of utensils also pay a tax, because sometimes the knives they make are used to stab people? Should baseball bat manufacturers pay a tax because their bats occasionally hit human heads rather than baseballs? But what about the times that guns are used to save lives? By their own reasoning, the authors ought to advocate government subsidies to gun makers for each innocent life saved because of the deterrent effect of a gun, or the shooting of a violent criminal. But they do not, because they are not trying to make a serious intellectual argument, but rather are abusing a sound economic principle to find a pretext for bankrupting gun manufacturers, who are just providing legal goods that consumers want to purchase.