State attorneys general and trial lawyers are eyeing a fat new target: firearms manufacturers. In fact, Chicago and Philadelphia are already threatening to sue them. Critics say such intentions only illustrate how far the liability-litigation madness has gone.

Legal observers say anti-gun suits would differ from anti-tobacco attacks in some fundamental ways.

• While reliable statistics showed smokers actually saved states money in health care costs because they tended to die earlier than non-smokers, the tobacco companies were reluctant to use this argument -- leaving it to anti-tobacco lawyers to give the erroneous impression smokers actually cost states more.

• But new evidence shows gun-ownership by the general public actually acts as a deterrent to crime -- thereby shooting down the potential argument that guns costs jurisdictions money.

• Americans use guns defensively about 2.5 million times a year -- and 98 percent of the time merely brandishing the weapon is sufficient to stop an attack.

• The chances of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for those resisting with a gun.

Anti-gun litigants are likely to argue that low prices for guns make them more readily available. But law-abiding poor people living in the highest-crime areas benefit the most from gun ownership, facilitated by their low prices.

A 1996 survey of 15,000 chiefs of police and sheriffs found 93 percent of them thought law-abiding citizens should be able to purchase guns for self-defense. Studies have also shown that states issuing the most gun-carry permits have had the largest drops in violent crime.