Inspired in Bucks, U.S. seeks BB gun recall

Pennsylvania - New Jersey - New York - Nationwide

A grave injury in 1999 prodded the case. The Consumer Product Safety Commission argues projectiles can shake free.

By Larry King
Inquirer Staff Writer
OCTOBER 31, 2001

A federal agency yesterday sought the recall of 7.5 million high-powered BB guns sold over the last three decades — a sweeping initiative with a gravely injured Bucks County teenager at its emotional center.

Prodded largely by the accidental 1999 shooting of Tucker Mahoney, the Consumer Product Safety Commission filed an administrative lawsuit against the Daisy Manufacturing Co.

The lawsuit seeks the recall of model 880 and model 856 of Daisy's Powerline Airguns. It contends that BBs can lodge in the magazine of a gun that appears to be empty, then shake loose and discharge unexpectedly.

Daisy consistently has said its products are safe if properly used.

The commission says that since 1972, defective Daisy models have contributed to at least 15 deaths and 171 injuries, mostly to children.

None, however, has had the impact of the wound Mahoney suffered two years ago in the backyard of his Solebury Township home. It was "the one that seemed to capture the defect most tragically," commission spokesman Ken Giles said.

At the time, Mahoney was 16, a robust basketball player at New Hope-Solebury High School. On May 24, 1999, he and a friend were target shooting with a new Daisy 856 - a birthday present Mahoney's father had bought him.

When the gun seemed empty, the boys began horsing around, mussing each other's hair with burst of air from the muzzle. A BB discharged, piercing Mahoney's skull behind his left ear, severing an artery and causing massive brain damage.

Today, at 18, he lives at the Woods Services School in Langhorne, virtually helpless.

"He is horribly injured," said Shanin Specter, an attorney for the family. "He is wheelchair-bound, catastrophically brain-damaged, is fed by a tube and cannot speak."

Rebecca Mahoney, Tucker's mother, said she and her husband were "thrilled" that regulators were seeking a recall.

At the same time, she said, the family remains "absolutely devastated" by the accident.

"Today's action is not going to help Tucker at all," she said after attending the announcement outside Washington. "But it certainly is going to help some other child who perhaps has a defective gun sitting in their home or garage."

Earlier this year, the Mahoneys settled a lawsuit against Daisy and Kmart, which sells the guns.

In the course of that lawsuit, the Mahoney's attorneys successfully petitioned the commission to investigate the disputed models.

In a statement issued late yesterday, Daisy chief executive officer Ray Hobbs said the company's products "go above and beyond established standards for safety."

Hobbs noted that the commission had repeatedly reviewed the two models over the years "and found them to be safe with no defects." As for the deaths and injuries investigated by the commission, he said, "the individuals using the air rifles were ignoring safety warnings at the time they fired the product."

Bringing an administrative lawsuit is an unusual step for the safety commission. Most of its recalls, about 300 per year, are voluntarily negotiated between regulators and industry.

"It is rare that CPSC, or any federal health and safety agency, has to file a legal case to try to force a company to do a recall," Giles said.

An administrative judge will hear the case. If a recall is ordered, Daisy could appeal to the safety commission, and then to federal court, Giles said.

Though Tucker Mahoney was featured last year on ABC's 20/20, Rebecca Mahoney said her son was unaware of his national following.

"We are having trouble finding a viable means of communicating with Tucker, and so he's locked in a shell," she said. "I can't imagine a more hideous situation.