An Ontario Superior Court judge has accepted, in a preliminary decision in
Price v Smith & Wesson Corp, 2021 ONSC 1114, that gun manufacturers may have civil liability in Canada for losses caused by mass shootings when feasible safety measures could have prevented the harm but were not used.
The Danforth Shooting
In summer 2018, a mass shooting on Danforth Avenue in Toronto involving a stolen handgun claimed the lives of two people and injured many others. The stolen handgun was an M&P®40, designed and manufactured by the U.S. company Smith & Wesson Corp in 2005 and made available for sale in Canada in 2013. The M&P®40 is a semi-automatic pistol for military and police use and is not designed for hunting. It did not incorporate any so-called “smart gun” technology to thwart criminal acts by unauthorized users. Justice Paul Perell in his decision made reference to Canadian and U.S. statistics indicating that lost and stolen firearms pose a substantial threat to public safety and law enforcement.