LOS ANGELES (AP) - Victims' relatives are suing the companies that made and sold the weapons that a white supremacist allegedly used to kill a postman and wound five people at a Jewish community center last year.

The suit, filed Wednesday, claims that Glock Inc. and other makers of guns seized from Buford O. Furrow share some responsibility for the Aug. 10, 1999, crimes. It seeks unspecified damages.

"It's not good enough to let guns go out your factory door and say, 'Sorry, we don't know where they're headed,'" Horwitz said. "Companies like Glock need to make sure the retail purchaser is the end purchaser and not turn their back on the distribution of deadly weapons."

Furrow is accused of using a 9 mm Glock pistol that he bought at a pawnshop to kill Ileto. In addition to Glock, the defendants include makers or sellers of the six other guns seized from Furrow.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), August 10, 2000

Answers

What earthly sense does that lawsuit make if the gun was acquired at a pawnshop?

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), August 10, 2000.

You mean you thought lawsuits had to make sense???

They only have to make cents... for lawyers :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), August 11, 2000.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Saying it did not want to open a ''Pandora's box'' for lawsuits against other industries, an appeals court has upheld a judge's decision to throw out a suit by the city of Cincinnati seeking to recover millions of dollars from gun manufacturers.

In its unanimous decision Friday, the Ohio First District Court of Appeals likened the city suit to the ``absurdity'' of suing the makers of matches because of losses from arson.

Cincinnati had joined with more than 30 other cities nationwide in attempting to recover enormous monetary sums from gunmakers for crime and violence done with guns.

The appellate court's opinion said the city suit was fatally flawed because it had failed to link any direct damages from gun violence to specific gun-manufacturer defendants.

`Were we to decide otherwise, we would open a Pandora's box. The city could sue the manufacturers of matches for arson, or automobile manufacturers for traffic accidents, or breweries for drunken driving.''

(Ahhh...I'm glad that settles that. The judge was right too,...)

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), August 12, 2000.