Danforth Avenue is a busy section in the Greektown area of Toronto, a neighborhood that’s both a commercial and ethnic enclave. In July 2018, people heard anywhere from 10-15 gunshots that sounded like firecrackers. Faisal Hussain had opened fire with a stolen gun. Before the Danforth shooting was over, 2 young girls were dead, 13 others suffered gunshot wounds and Hussain would take his own life in a showdown with the Toronto police.
Now, the survivors have filed a lawsuit. Samantha Price and Skye McLeod are both university students and were out for ice cream with friends when the shooting happened. Both, along with their families, have filed a class action suit against Smith & Wesson, the manufacturer of the gun that Hussain used.
The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court, seeks $50 million in general damages and $100 million in punitive damages against the Massachusetts based gun company. Other victims of the shooting are being invited to join their names to the suit.
The basis for the lawsuit is that Smith & Wesson “knew the handgun was an ultra-hazardous product that posed a substantial likelihood of harm to the public,” in the words of the lawsuit. If proven, this is the essence of negligence—the failure to provide a reasonable duty of care. The basis for that is the absence of smart-gun technology.
Smart-gun technology would ensure that only authorized users could use a gun. In the same way your phone or laptop may recognize a face or fingerprint, the gun would be programmed also. This would prevent a stolen gun from being used in a shooting.
“The defendant owed a duty…to ensure that any handguns it made available on the Canadian market were designed and manufactured to implement technology that would prevent unauthorized users from causing the very type of harm and injury suffered,” the lawsuit states.
But does a failure to implement a technology that is still not commonly available rise to the level of negligence? The plaintiffs are pinning their case on the fact that Smith & Wesson reached an agreement with the U.S. government to implement smart-gun technology back in 2000.
The backlash to that agreement among the gun-owning community was severe and Smith & Wesson nearly went out of business. In 2005, legislation was passed that shielded gun manufacturers from lawsuits. The result was that Smith & Wesson had no more incentive to continue forth with the technology and, as of today, has no plans to bring it to market.
But the shield from lawsuits does not extend to Canada. Is smart-gun technology a creative way out of the current standstill in the debate over gun rights, restrictions and access, as supporters believe? Or is it an end-run around those rights, as critics allege?
That’s for policymakers to decide, but for now, all eyes will be on the Ontario Superior Court.