4/18/2006
Air Rifles, Air Guns and BB Guns
By whatever name they are called, air rifles, air guns, or BB guns, make no mistake, these guns are not toys. They can cause serious injury and even death. Powered by compressed gas or air, many of today’s models are as powerful, and as dangerous, as firearms. Though their sale is largely unregulated, BBs and pellets shot from these guns can put out an eye, penetrate the skin and internal organs, and even a human skull.
And, not all manufacturers take care to ensure that their products are safe. Some BB guns appear to be empty when they are not.
Take for example, the Daisy PowerLine Model 990, 880, and 856. The Cearley Law Firm has represented the families of children who have been killed or catastrophically injured by these guns. The PowerLine series of air rifles has quite a record —
Nine deaths
Thirty head/brain injuries
Forty-three eye injuries
Seven injuries to vital organs
Twenty-one injuries to other body parts
Daisy Manufacturing Company has marketed these high velocity “toys” since 1972. The first death with a Daisy product occurred in 1973, less than one year after these guns went on the market.
Our firm has represented several victims of these high velocity “toys.”
- 1994 - 8 year old boy who was accidentally shot in the heart by his playmate with a Daisy Powerline Model 880 that appeared to be empty of BBs. The child suffered severe brain injury, and remains a quadriplegic. His case settled before trial for a confidential amount.
- 1996 - 10 year old boy who was accidentally shot in the head by his brother after target practicing with a Daisy Powerline Model 990 that appeared to be empty of BBs. The child suffered severe brain injury. His case settled before trial for $5,000,000.00.
- 1998 - 15 year old boy was accidentally shot in the eye by his friend with a Daisy Powerline Model 990 that appeared to be empty of BBs. The child suffered the loss of his right eye. His case settled before trial for a confidential amount.
- 1999 - 7 year old boy was accidentally shot in the neck by his playmate with a Daisy Powerline Model 856 that appeared to be empty of BBs. The child underwent surgery and suffered permanent scarring. His case settled before trial for a confidential amount.
- 2002 - 11 year old boy was accidentally shot in the head by his friend with a Daisy Powerline Model 880. The child died a few days later. His case settled before trial for a confidential amount.
Daisy Powerline air rifles are pneumatic air rifles, designed to shoot BBs and/or pellets propelled by air or CO2. At ten pumps, these guns will shoot a projectile at a velocity of approximately 685 feet per second. BBs from these guns have been chronographed by experts at velocities as high as 800 feet per second when the gun is pumped more than ten times. Pathologists calculate that a projectile will penetrate human tissue at approximately 325 feet per second.
The primary problem with the Powerline air rifle is in the design of its gravity feed system and the magazine that holds the BBs. The magazine has areas in which BBs can lodge and fail to load to the bolt tip where they are then visible to the shooter. A Powerline air rifle can be emptied of BBs, and can be shaken and no telltale rattle of BBs heard. It can be pumped and fired, discharging only air. The shooter believes that the gun is empty. One of the BBs can later dislodge and move into the firing position, while the shooter still believes that his gun is empty.
After our first case against Daisy, Bob Cearley went to Washington, D.C. and petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission for a recall of these guns. The CPSC investigated the matter, but did not mandate a recall.
Another tragic accident happened in 1999 with one of these guns, which resulted in a $19,000,000.00 settlement with Daisy. After that, the CPSC filed a lawsuit against Daisy Manufacturing seeking a recall of these guns. The Wall Street Journal published the following editorial addressing the CPSC lawsuit, and Mr. Cearley’s response to the Wall Street Journal follows the article:
The Wall Street Journal
November 30, 2001
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!
As anyone who has ever watched "A Christmas Story" knows, that's the rebuke little Ralphie Parker meets at every turn when he asks for what every red-blooded American boy wants under his Christmas tree: a genuine Red Ryder Carbine Action Two-Hundred Shot Lightning Loader Range Model Air Rifle. Even the department-store Santa tells him that.
In the movie, of course, Ralphie eventually gets his gun. But in real life stories don't always have such happy endings. Especially if the grinches at the Consumer Product Safety Commission have their way.
Recently the commission filed a lawsuit against Daisy Manufacturing Co. (the maker of the Red Ryder) that seeks to force Daisy to recall two of its popular BB-gun models, for no other reason than that they are . . . BB guns.
Even Santa must be scratching his head. Daisy has been selling one of the models for nearly 30 years and the other since 1984; in total 7.5 million would be up for recall. Daisy, moreover, has already passed six CPSC reviews since 1981. Strangest yet, the "defect" the commission now claims to have found in the Daisy rifles is actually common to the entire air-gun industry.
Ah yes, but this isn't about safety; it's about politics. Former Commission Chairman Ann Brown needed one last hurrah before she resigned this month, and what better target than air-guns? They've been on the "naughty" list of zero-tolerance types for years -- gender-neutral, antiviolence folks don't want little boys playing with toy soldiers, much less real hardware. And a victory over Daisy (which, along with other BB-gun makers, has a spotless record of self-regulation) would mean control over the whole market, 100 million BB guns strong. Even if the lawsuit fails, the commission might be able to scare retailers into dropping the products for fear of liability.
BB guns, as everyone who has used one knows, are operated by dumping BBs into a gravity-feed magazine. Ms. Brown and her fellow Scrooges are claiming that BBs might get stuck in the Daisy, causing kids to think their gun was unloaded and thus to handle it unsafely.
That's a pretty big "might." Commissioner Mary Sheila Gall, the one voice of dissent in the suit, revealed that the commission hadn't even been able to replicate the "defect" in any of its (many) attempts. She noted that the gravity-feed mechanism has been around for 100 years and is common to most BB guns. More to the point, the "might" also ignores the most important safety device of all: parents who make sure that their kids know never to point a gun at another person, whether they think it is loaded or not. No amount of commission recalls or lawsuits will ever replace good old-fashioned common sense.
And so we have a suggestion for Santa. This Christmas Eve, as he delivers Daisy BB guns to expectant children all across America, he might bring along an extra load of coal. And he might just drop it down a certain Washington chimney -- observing all the proper safety procedures, of course.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Response of Robert M. Cearley, Jr. to the Wall Street Journal:
The Wall Street Journal
Editor
RE: “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!”
November 30, 2001
"You'll shoot your eye out," may have been all the warning that little Ralphie needed, given that he was shooting a low power BB gun. But times have changed, and so have Daisy air rifles. Loss of an eye is one thing -- catastrophic injury and loss of life are quite another. Ralphie’s mom never saw a BB gun like the Daisy Models 880 and 856. These air rifles shoot BBs with enough force to penetrate a skull or a vital organ and cause serious brain damage, or even death. With that kind of fire power, it is not unreasonable to expect that there would be a reliable way to tell whether the air rifle is empty of BBs, but there is not. By Daisy’s own admission, the only way to be absolutely certain that these guns are empty of BBs is to disassemble the gun. When a shooter cannot see BBs in the magazine, or hear them rattle; and when the gun can be cocked and fired numerous times without discharging a BB, it is not unreasonable for a shooter to conclude that the gun is not loaded, and many do, with tragic consequences. This is not a "defect" common to the gun industry, as you suggest.
As to replicating the "lodging" problem, in the spring of 1993, I represented a ten year-old Arkansas boy who suffered severe brain damage and quadriplegia when he was accidentally shot in the heart with a Daisy Model 880 that was thought to be empty. The shooter had checked the gun for BBs, seen none, heard none, and had cocked and fired the gun numerous times, discharging only air. That fall, I personally filed a complaint with the CPSC, flew to Washington at my own expense, and demonstrated this problem to CPSC staff. In the fall of 1996, I demonstrated this problem for Daisy's counsel and its insurance carrier in another case involving a nine year-old Michigan boy who suffered brain damage and partial paralysis when his brother accidentally shot him in the head with a BB fired from a Daisy Model 990 that was thought to be empty. The air rifle had been cocked and fired numerous times, discharging only air. ABC 20/20 aired a story on these guns in the spring of 1997, and in spite of these claims, and others that Daisy had settled for millions of dollars, Daisy’s president, Marvin Griffin, told the 20/20 interviewer that these guns were not defective. In the spring of 1999, during the discovery phase of another case, immediately after the Daisy employee who designed the Daisy Model 856 testified in a video taped deposition that he had never seen a BB become lodged in the magazine of the gun and fail to load, I demonstrated with a cut-away model exactly how BBs do become lodged in the magazine and fail to load.
Within weeks of that video taped demonstration, Daisy redesigned the BB magazine of the Models 856 and 990 to eliminate this problem. Yet Daisy continued production of the defective design until all the parts on hand were used up; and allowed the defective guns already on store shelves around the country to be sold to unsuspecting buyers. One such gun was purchased off the shelf at K-Mart and given to a Pennsylvania high school student for his sixteenth birthday. Two days later, he was accidentally shot in the head by his best friend who thought the gun was empty after it had been cocked and fired numerous times, discharging only air. Daisy settled the case before trial for almost $19 Million. The sixteen year old victim is now two years older, quadriplegic, and unable to speak. Is this Daisy's "spotless" record to which you refer?
It’s not Ralphie’s Red Ryder that Ms. Brown and “her fellow Scrooges” at the CPSC want to force Daisy to recall. It’s these deceptively dangerous and defective high power air rifles that kill and maim children. Not all Christmas stories have happy endings. We should all hope the grinches at the CPSC have their way.
Robert M. Cearley, Jr.
212 Center Street, Suite 200
Little Rock, AR 722021
501-372-5600 Phone
501-374-3463 Fax
bob@cearleylawfirm.com
IF YOU HAVE BEEN INJURED
If you or your loved one has been seriously injured by an air rifle, air gun, bb or pellet gun, you may be entitled to compensation for pain and suffering, medical expenses, lost wages, and other damages. Call us at the Cearley Law Firm or complete and submit the Free Confidential Case Evaluation form found on the Prospective Client Pages of this website. We’re here to help. And remember, treat every gun as if it were loaded, never point it at anything you don’t intend to shoot, and follow the rules of gun safety.
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