Why Gary, Indiana's decades-old lawsuit against gun industry may soon be over

Thirty years ago, Gary, Indiana, was declared the murder capital of the U.S. Following the example of other cities, Gary sued gun makers and sellers for their part in fueling the city’s violence. Gary’s case is now the last one still active as this industrial city works to get a handle on gun violence. Jeffrey Brown reports.

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Amna Nawaz: Thirty years ago, Gary, Indiana, was declared the murder capital of the U.S.

Following the example of other cities, Gary sued gun makers and sellers for their part in fueling the city’s violence.

As Jeffrey Brown reports, Gary’s case is now the last one still active as this industrial city works to get a handle on gun violence.

Jeffrey Brown: At Daniel Hale Williams Elementary in Gary, Indiana, graduating fifth graders were receiving end-of-the year awards. Amid the celebration, the ceremony’s guest speaker offered a warning of sorts, one with echoes of her own experience growing up here.

Aaliyah Stewart, ASW Foundation: Being excited for middle school is a very important thing, but a couple things happen as you get older. You change. You meet new people.

Jeffrey Brown: By the time Aaliyah Stewart was the age of these kids, she had already experienced the horrific toll of gun violence.

Aaliyah Stewart: With Anthony, I was seven and my brother was like, our world. His smile would light up an entire room. A fight broke out.

And the story goes that he got out to break up the fight and was shot in the head. So, gun violence is something that you really don’t pay attention to until it becomes, like a reality at your door.

Jeffrey Brown: And then it happened again.

Aaliyah Stewart: Yes, almost seven years later, my brother James was killed. James was 20 and I was 13.

Brian Evans, Gary, Indiana, Deputy Police Chief: In this community, it’s more easy to get a gun than maybe a fresh tomato.

Jeffrey Brown: Brian Evans is deputy chief of the Gary Police Department. He joined the force in 1994, the same year the media declared the city murder capital of the U.S. with a homicide rate almost nine times the national level.

Brian Evans: I have had days back then where we have had as many as five homicides in one day, most of it fueled by drug and then gangs for drug territory.

Jeffrey Brown: The explosion of violence came after a long decline for Gary. Founded as a company town at the turn of the last century, U.S. Steel’s Gary Works employed about 30,000 people at its peak.

While its still one of the largest steel mills in the U.S., today it employs some 4,000. That decline, accompanied by white flight, cut Gary’s population by more than half, leaving an estimated 10,000 abandoned structures and a much less racially diverse community, today more than 80 percent Black, and more than a third of Gary’s residents live below the poverty line.

Brian Evans: Those jobs dried up and went away, leaving a big economic void here in a city that couldn’t be filled as fast as they left. And so we were affected by that, which ultimately affects everything.

Jeffrey Brown: Including the crime rise.

Brian Evans: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jeffrey Brown: While Gary struggled to police its way out of gun violence, the city also tried another approach, one with national implications.

In 1999, Gary and other cities decided to pursue a sweeping new legal strategy, to sue gun sellers and manufacturers for not preventing illegal sales. Well, nearly 25 years later, that suit has yet to full play out in court. And now it appears it may never.

State Rep. Chris Jeter (R-IN): House Bill 1235 is the continuation of a long-running effort to remove sort of the last final lawsuit against gun manufacturers that has been pending.

Jeffrey Brown: This past March, the Republican-led Indiana legislature passed and Republican Governor Eric Holcomb signed a bill that limited who can bring legal action against the gun industry.

Now only the state, not municipalities like Gary, can sue. And the law was made retroactive to exactly three days before Gary filed its 1999 lawsuit.

State Rep. Ragen Hatcher (D-IN): It’s insulting, to say the least, that this legislative body would make a determination about a lawsuit when that is the role of the judicial branch in the state of Indiana.

Jeffrey Brown: Democrat Ragen Hatcher represents Gary in the Indiana General Assembly.

You’re a legislator. One of the arguments, of course, is that the legislature in a democracy is where these public issues should be addressed, rather than the courts.

State Rep. Ragen Hatcher: I don’t disagree with that. And I think that is what the legislature is for. However, I disagree with the fact that it was made retroactive, and it was a law that was specific to one lawsuit.

Jeffrey Brown: Is there a racial dynamic at play?

State Rep. Ragen Hatcher: I don’t know what else could be in play right now except for a racial dynamic, a targeting of Northwest Indiana, a targeting of the people who have made a determination that this is a lawsuit that is important to this community.

Most of our Republican representatives are in rural areas. And so, when we talk about inner-city crime, it’s hard for them to understand the impact of that.

State Rep. Chris Jeter: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, members of the House.

Jeffrey Brown: Republican Representative Chris Jeter, who authored the bill to kill the lawsuit, didn’t respond to an interview request.

But Lawrence Keane, who represents the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearm industry, told us Gary’s lawsuit unfairly targets legal gun sales.

Lawrence Keane, National Shooting Sports Foundation: Gary’s case is the last of some 40 lawsuits filed beginning in late 1998-1999 time frame seeking to blame the industry for the criminal misuse of lawfully sold firearms. It has no merit.

Jeffrey Brown: Keane points out that nearly 30 states have laws similar to the one Indiana just passed shielding the gun industry and that, in 2005, President George W. Bush signed a law giving the gun industry broad legal protection from lawsuits.

In essence, that means that the firearms industry is shielded from being held responsible in courts in ways that other industries are not.

Lawrence Keane: Well, I disagree with the premise of your question. The difference is, no other industry had been attacked with lawsuits like the firearms industry, and that’s why legislation was necessary to stop these frivolous lawsuits.

No other industry is held responsible for the actions of criminals. No one would think to sue Budweiser for drunk driving accidents.

Rodney Pol, City Attorney, Gary, Indiana: I would say it’s — this is more akin to the opioid issues.

Jeffrey Brown: Rodney Pol is the city attorney for Gary.

Rodney Pol: If a doctor prescribes opioids to somebody that they know needs opioids, totally legal. But if you have a doctor that’s overprescribing and you have companies that are pushing doctors to overprescribe or prescribe to individuals that may not necessarily need it, now all of a sudden you have an opioid epidemic where people are addicted to them.

Jeffrey Brown: While these arguments go on, gun violence persists, even as the number of homicides has fallen more than 50 percent since the mid-’90s.

Brian Evans: This is the operations center, where we can view multiple cameras all over the city.

Jeffrey Brown: Deputy Police Chief Brian Evans points to new surveillance efforts like this real-time crime center and better coordination with other law enforcement.

But also making his job harder, in 2022, the state ended a requirement that people in Indiana obtain a permit to carry, conceal, or transport a handgun.

Brian Evans: Before, we could legally ask if you had a gun permit, if you are legally able to have the gun. Right now, we don’t have that right. Matter of fact, we don’t even have a right to encounter you just because of the gun.

Aaliyah Stewart: The steel mill is directly back that way.

Jeffrey Brown: As for Aaliyah Stewart, she’s focused on the continuing realities for many in Gary.

Aaliyah Stewart: My brother and his friends, this was the meet-up spot.

Jeffrey Brown: Now 23, she’s channeled the grief from the deaths of her two brothers into a nonprofit focused on empowering young people and preventing gun violence.

How prevalent are guns in the life of the young people you’re working with?

Aaliyah Stewart: If I put 10 kids in here and said, how many of you have had a loved one killed to gun violence, nine of them are going to raise their hand?

Jeffrey Brown: Nine out of 10?

Aaliyah Stewart: Nine out of 10. It’s their reality. It’s their truth.

I try to be the beacon of light, beacon of hope, providing an opportunity, a space to be theirself, somewhere to come where they have someone that looks like them, acts like them, and understands where they come from.

Jeffrey Brown: While efforts like Aaliyah’s go on, so does the city’s lawsuit, at least for now. Both sides will be back in court later this month, arguing whether the state’s new law will in fact end Gary’s nearly 25-year-old case.

For the PBS “NewsHour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown in Gary, Indiana.