What do guns, cars and cigarette smoking have in common? They all have created public health crises. What did we do as a nation to reduce auto deaths and discourage smoking? We took action, such as enacting requirements for seat belts, child car seats and airbags. We required that the Surgeon General’s warning be posted on cigarette packages and that ads promoting cigarettes be banned. Some of us remember Joe the Camel ads. We banned ads like that and others on TV beginning in 1971 with the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, signed by President Nixon.
Did those public policies work? Yes, they did. The National Highway Traffic Administration reports that seat belts have reduced auto fatalities by 45% in passenger cars and 60% in light trucks. Infant car seats reduce fatalities by an impressive 70% and 54% for children up to 4 years old in passenger cars. Regarding smoking rates, a recent review of bans on advertising for smoking performed by the Australian Griffith School of Medicine shows a 37% reduction in initiation of smoking and a 20% reduction in overall smoking rates.
What similar public policies can be adopted to improve gun safety? Improvements like offering smart guns, which cannot be operated by someone who steals a gun. Hundreds of thousands of guns are stolen every year. Wouldn’t it be great if they could not be used by the criminals who stole them? Or by children in the household of the gun owner? How about a device that prevents a gun from discharging when it is accidentally dropped? Or a loaded chamber indicator?
Viewing gun violence as a public health crisis can help focus our public policy efforts on reducing the risks inherent in the proliferation of guns in our country. This would protect gun owners, too. Today’s weapons are much more lethal than those available on the market 40 to 50 years ago and exceed the power of anything imagined by the Framers of the Second Amendment. Bullets designed for the AR-15 have enough power to penetrate a steel helmet at 500 yards. Imagine the damage that can do to the human body.
Another measure would be to allow civil lawsuits for negligent gun defects by manufacturers. Design flaws often happen in the manufacture of consumer products. Examples include the Ford Pinto gas tanks that exploded in rear-end collisions; defective airbag inflators in autos; or drop-side rails on cribs that could suffocate babies. These negligent designs were remedied after legislation, public complaints or lawsuits.
Why should gun manufacturers not be held accountable for design flaws, negligent manufacturing or harmful marketing tactics? In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which granted broad immunity to gun manufacturers from most civil liability. A 2024 Supreme Court decision regarding the Act opens the door for states to allow such lawsuits, provided the manufacturer’s conduct meets the negligence standard. This could lead to more cases where defective designs, unsafe features, or harmful marketing are litigated. It would be far more effective if done at the national level. Let’s encourage our national and state legislators to take reasonable actions to improve safe gun designs, ban harmful marketing, and hold gun manufacturers liable for design flaws that result in needless injuries and death. Our health and safety depend on it.
