The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence brought a civil lawsuit on behalf of the victims’ families and won a $150,000 settlement from the Nevada pawnshop that sold the assault pistol.

About 70 percent of the 24,526 murders in the country in 1993 were committed with firearms, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. It’s time to find out how these ultrahazardous products are finding their way into all of these irresponsible hands.

Under a traditional product liability theory, it has been difficult, if not impossible, to hold manufacturers strictly liable for injuries caused by the misuse of firearms that are neither negligently produced nor defectively designed, as courts in California, Texas and Michigan have found.

Holding manufacturers liable, though, would internalize costs for consumers of the product, rather than the burden being borne by innocent third parties and society in general. Such internalization also would provide an incentive to the industry to take a hard look at the cost-benefit ratio of each of its products.

Gun manufacturers can’t deny that some of them sell to mail order distributors who offer their wares through 800 numbers. Some manufacturers have been known to sell to dealers who don’t even have an established business address.

In federal court in New York, more than a dozen of the country’s largest handgun manufacturers are defending negligence claims brought by the estates of nine shooting victims. In Hamilton v. Accu-tek, CV-95 0049, Judge Jack B. Weinstein held a prima facie case was established, based on New York’s having a sufficient interest in the safety of its residents from homicide by handguns.

The outcome there may be helpful here in Chicago, where the father of a 19-year-old college student killed at point-blank range recently joined two other parents of murdered children in a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court Law Division against three gun manufacturers. With shades of the tobacco industry’s legal strategy, the suit alleges that the gun industry steers guns to criminals.

Attorneys in these cases are pursuing new viable theories: negligent marketing, a notion that has gained credibility in the health care field; and public nuisance, a theory akin to that alleged in the environmental hazard field aimed at the public’s right to health and safety.

Handgun manufacturers’ marketing often is based upon the "wildest" lore of owning something that is dangerous, powerful, para-military — notions that are often appealing to the criminal element on the street.

And why shouldn’t recovery be allowed on these principles, particularly against a manufacturer who introduces a harmful product into general circulation, where the social utility of marketing that product to the public is outweighed by its risk of harm?

Negligent distribution claims can be based on the notion that the manufacturer implemented a marketing strategy that deliberately, recklessly or negligently targeted criminal consumers, a theory that failed in the New York case involving the sale of hollow-point "Black Talon" bullets designed to expand upon impact.

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. of the Southern District of New York found that plaintiffs’ arguments should instead be addressed to the New York legislature.

Such theories haven’t fared well in Illinois, either. Less than a year ago, U.S. District Court Judge David Coar rejected the negligent marketing, distribution and public nuisance claims against a major gun maker, Florida-based Navegar. Bubalo v. Navegar, Inc., No. 96C3664 (decided June 13, 1997); Motion for Reconsideration, (decided March 20, 1998).

So, how is the public supposed to control the carnage in the streets?

Mayor Richard Daley has decided to take the matter to court. In November he, along with the City of Chicago and Cook County filed a $4.33 million lawsuit against the firearms industry.

The suit accuses gun makers of saturating the city with more guns than could ever be sold to law-abiding citizens, arguing that gun manufacturers have become a "public nuisance" through marketing and distribution methods designed to circumvent the city’s highly restrictive gun laws, which forbid handgun sales. According to the complaint, more than 17,500 violent crimes, including 570 homicides, were committed with guns in Chicago in 1997.

The suit names 16 gun stores and 22 manufacturers as defendants. It came on the heels of a suit filed by New Orleans, which argued that guns are "unreasonably dangerous" under Louisiana’s product liability law. That suit alleges that gun manufacturers have failed to take steps, such as distributing warnings, to prevent children and other unauthorized people from using them.

And this may be just the tip of the iceberg as city governments nationwide prepare a wave of lawsuits seeking to hold handgun manufacturers responsible for the multi-billion dollar costs of violent crimes, from police salaries to the purchase of medical equipment.

And, the state legislature may soon enter the fray. State Rep. Thomas Dar, D-Chicago, introduced a bill mirroring the Mayor’s plan in Springfield in the 90th Session. It’s expected to be reintroduced in the 91st Session this year.

State Sen. Arthur Berman, D-Chicago, also introduced the Handgun and Assault Weapon Liability Act that would have held makers or importers of handguns and assault weapons strictly liable for damages that result from their use. It was procedurally killed in the Republican-controlled Rules Committee.

Perhaps it’s time for judges and juries to step in and set the nation’s gun policy.

Many of us can remember the day in 1985 when Maryland’s Supreme Court held the makers of Saturday night specials liable for manufacturing the cheap handgun. Kelley v. R.G. Industries, 304 Md. 124, 497 A.2d 1143 (1985).

With the cases pending in Chicago and New York, plaintiffs are determined to find out what the gun industry is doing to keep its products from falling into criminal hands. Are gun manufacturers really doing all they can to prevent the distribution of guns to irresponsible people?

Perhaps courts should examine yet another negligent marketing claim, this one aimed at a manufacturer’s failing to take reasonable steps to prevent purchases by people likely to misuse them.

That doesn’t mean that all postal workers and spurned lovers don’t have the right to carry firearms, but it may make a dent in assault weapons being a staple among gang members.