ABSTRACT
Case 1: On October 14, 1989, three teenage boys were examining a .38-caliber automatic pistol that belonged to the father of one of the boys. Thinking that the gun was unloaded because the ammunition magazine had been removed, one of the boys pulled the trigger, accidentally shooting and killing fourteenyear-old Michael J. Steber of Clay, New York. The boys had not realized that a round was still in the gun’s chamber. Two years later the parents of the dead boy filed a civil suit against the gun’s owner (and father of the shooter), Gordon Lane, a former Syracuse police officer and head of the state’s chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, and against the gun manufacturer for failing to include a 75-cent safety feature that would have prevented the gun from firing without the bullet magazine. Lane had several guns in the home and had guided his son’s use of them. The father of the dead boy questioned the justification for keeping such weapons in the home. “I’m a Vietnam veteran too,” said Mr. Steber, “and I don’t have a gun around the house. I don’t need it.”1
