Litigation, Mass Media, and the Campaign to Criminalize the Firearms Industry

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Litigation, Mass Media, and the Campaign to Criminalize the Firearms Industry

Category: Gun Markets|Journal: Onati Socio-legal Series (full text)|Author: M McCann, W Haltom|Year: 2014

This article extends the co-authors’ researches on mass media coverage of crusades against manufacturers and marketers of tobacco products in the United States to media coverage of similar crusades against manufacturers and marketers of firearms in the United States. The major contention of the article is that firearms-reformers have used civil suits and allied publicity outside courts to depict firearms producers and retailers as criminals. A major tactic that has unified reformers’ efforts inside and outside courts is deployment of crimtorts, civil litigation for torts that includes elements of criminal prosecution. Crimtorts and publicity through entertainment media enabled opponents of firearms companies to lose case after case yet to damage the reputations or brands of firearms makers and marketers. The firearms interests fended off crusaders in civil action after civil action yet became portrayed as outright criminals owing mostly to crimtorts.

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