INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (NETWORK INDIANA):  A bill that would prevent from local governments from suing gun manufacturers could be voted on this week in the House Floor. This bill says only the state can sue a gun manufacturer. It was approved in the House Judiciary Committee last week by a vote of 8-2.

One person who testified in favor of the bill was Indiana Gun Rights Attorney Guy Relford.

“It doesn’t can’t say there can’t ever be such a lawsuit. It just says it can’t be brought by a local government. The state or the Attorney General’s Office could still file that lawsuit on behalf of a local government. It just takes local politics out of it,” said Relford.

The bill would also apply retroactively to ongoing litigation. That means it applies to a 1999 lawsuit involving the City of Gary. In August 1999, the City of Gary — with the assistance of Brady attorneys and Michael Tolbert of Tolbert & Tolbert, LLC — brought a lawsuit against major gun manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson, Beretta USA Corp, Glock, and Hi-Point, as well as major sellers of crime guns in and around the City, for what the attorneys called their “complicity in contributing to the public safety risk caused by the availability of cheap firearms.”

“This case that the City of Gary brought has been really stymied by a lot of attempts by the gun industry to evade accountability,” said Kelly Sampson, Brady’s Senior Counsel and Director of Racial Justice.

Sampson argues that local municipalities, like Gary, should have the right to bring lawsuits in an attempt to hold an industry accountable for harming it’s people.

“If you don’t follow responsible business practices when getting a firearm, when you ignore signs that the gun will be used in a crime, and something happens with that gun over and over again, then you have to have responsibility for your actions,” said Sampson.

In June, Lake Superior judge John Sedia issued a ruling allowing the discovery process to go ahead. That is where parties to a case can produce and share relative documents, such as gun sales by local retailers, for example.

Relford argues that the Brady attorneys don’t want to take the case to trial.

“They’re just using this as a means to discover information from the firearm industry in an attempt to beat them up,” said Relford.

He says privacy was what drove the thought process behind this bill.

“Now suddenly, my name’s been disclosed. What gun I’ve bought is disclosed. That’s all in the public domain. A lot of people are upset about that going, ‘Hey. It’s nobody’s business but mine what firearms I own or what firearms I bought,” said Relford.

Sampson says it’s very concerning that if the bill passes, then the power of local municipalities and governments will be lost.

“If your local officials thought it was in your best interest to bring this sort of case to protect your, your family, and your neighbors, they would no longer be able to do so even if they have that power for other industries,” said Sampson.

The lawsuit first brought by the City of Gary was against 11 handgun manufacturers, one wholesaler, five retailers, and additional “John Doe” defendants in 1999. It’s due for discovery in February. The city claims that negligent marketing and deceptive advertising by the businesses constituted a public nuisance and fueled illegal trafficking of weapons and violent crime in Gary.

Relford says questions gun stores must ask their customers are prescribed by federal law. The questions are dictated to gun stores by the ATF.

“The person fills that form out in the gun store. It asks questions like ‘Have you committed a crime for which you’ve been sentenced to prison longer than a year?’, ‘Are you under a domestic violence order of protection?’, ‘Are you in the country illegally?’ etc.,” said Relford.

By law that form gets sent to a national background check system in the FBI.