Is gun manufacturer liable in shooting?

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Should the makers and distributors of guns be held accountable if their products are used to commit a crime? A civil lawsuit is stirring up controversy.

Daniel Williams was an up-and-coming basketball prospect at McKinley High School in 2003 when a drive-by gunman put a bullet in his stomach in a case of mistaken identity.

The victim's attorney, Terry Connors, said, "His hopes and dreams went down on the day he was shot."

Minutes after the shooting, Buffalo Police arrested known gang-member Cornell Caldwell, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in prison. The Hi-Point 9mm semi-automatic pistol he used, similar to the one in the video, was sold to James Nigel Bostic, a Buffalo man with an extensive criminal record who used women, called "straw purchasers," to buy 87 handguns for him at an Ohio gun show.

The ATF field office in Buffalo is filled with confiscated weapons used in crimes, purchased just this way.

ATF resident-agent-in-charge Frank Christiano said, "Many of them are purchased outside New York State and subsequently trafficked in either by a straw purchaser or the trafficker himself."

More than seven years after Danny Williams was shot, his attorneys are now going after the manufacturer, Beemiller, and its sole distributor of Hi-Point firearms, MKS Supply saying they have evidence they knew or should have known the guns were destined for the black market.

"There was knowledge on the part of people selling these guns and they shouldn't have sold them," said Connors.

The victim's attorney, Jim Grable, added, "These guns are sold in mass quantities at a very low price, in circumstances that are without the proper level of scrutiny."

Bud Schroeder, an NRA board member and chairman of SCOPE, believes the lawsuit is reaching too far in the wrong direction.

"Generally speaking, you don't know what a person's going to do with a product. If I sold you a bottle of whiskey, I should have known that you're going to get drunk with it?" questioned Schroeder.

He added, "The manufacturer is a far distance, and I believe this case is being pursued because it's the deepest pocket."

The gun manufacturer and distributor contend no federal or state laws were broken in the sale and say federal law prohibits this type of lawsuit.

But attorneys representing Danny Williams, who have the support of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, believe they can prove negligence in the sale.