Gun control advocates say a lawsuit by the union for Milwaukee Police Department officers to force the department to replace a particular sidearm is missing the mark, News From The States reports. Since 2020, two officers have been injured when department-issued SIG Sauer P320 sidearms fired without the trigger being pulled. The Milwaukee Police Association sued the city in September, saying many officers have “lost all trust” in the P320 and demanding that the city replace the weapon. Two grassroots organizations working to curb gun violence have asked the police union to focus on the gun’s manufacturer rather than the city. “The police union has a right to be outraged that officers have been injured by these weapons, but they have failed to identify all the true culprits,” said the WAVE Educational Fund and Brady.
The groups said the SIG Sauer company, not the city, should be held responsible for the unreliable weapons and should be pressured to provide a remedy. “SIG Sauer likely does not feel an urgency to fix the problem or concern about being held accountable for producing a shoddy product, because of the actions of the next set of offenders: Congress and the gun lobby,” they said. WAVE and Brady noted that when Congress created the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972, the agency excluded the regulation of firearms after lobbying by the National Rifle Association. “That means firearms are virtually the only consumer products with no government agency having authority to provide oversight, set safety standards, or recall defective products,” said the groups.