Government Grants Gun Maker Sweetheart Deal

"ground-breaking" agreement with federal, state, and local governments to dismiss liability lawsuits in exchange for providing trigger locks and future safety improvements is misguided.

In exchange for dropping the lawsuit, the company will provide basic safety features, and do basic safety research that it should have been doing anyway:

All handguns must meet the following safety and design standards:

• Second "hidden" serial number, to prevent criminals from obliterating serial numbers.
• External locking device sold with all guns within 60 days.
• Internal locking device on all guns within 24 months.
• Smart Guns -- Authorized User Technology.
  • Manufacturers commit 2% of annual firearms revenues to the development of authorized user technology.
  • Within 36 months, authorized user technology will be included in all new firearm models, with the exception of curios and collectors’ firearms.
  • If top eight manufacturers agree, authorized user technology will be included in all new firearms.
• Child Safety. Within 12 months, handguns will be designed so they cannot be readily operated by a child under 6.
• Performance test. All firearms will be subject to a performance test to ensure safety and quality.
• Drop test. All firearms will be subject to a test to ensure they do not fire when dropped.

All pistols must meet the following additional requirements:

• Safety device. Positive manually operated safety device.
• Magazine disconnectors must be available on all pistols to customers who desire the feature, within 12 months.
• Chamber load indicators on all pistols, showing whether the pistol is loaded, within 12 months.
• Large capacity magazines. New firearm designs will not be able to accept large-capacity magazines that were manufactured prior to September 1994. (Manufacture of such magazines has been prohibited since that date.)

While there is no doubt that all these features are needed, the fact remains that Smith & Wesson and the other gun makers have been criminally negligent for decades in manufacturing unsafe products. Don't try and tell me they didn't know that guns were being used to kill people, whether accidentally or during the commission of a crime. There is no excuse for rewarding the long history of production of a deadly product by dismissing the lawsuits.

Corporations must be held responsible for their historical wrongs. Granting PR-friendly sweetheart deals to corporate criminals is the wrong way to start.