Her father is a machinist for Colt Manufacturing, the firearms company in West Hartford, Conn.

Recognizing that technological invention could bring wealth, he developed an electromagnetic cannon and, with some investors, formed a firearms company.

Another committee set up a month ago by the gun companies and cities to make the firearms companies more accountable for the way guns are sold has yet to meet.

But a gun industry executive said the firearms companies are talking in good faith.

Kimber Manufacturing, a firearms company that produces a wide variety of weapons, notably their M1911 pistols:

The MA-1 established ArmaLite as a recognized firearms company, leading to several other rifles of varying success.

Other firearms companies designed and manufactured sniper rifles based on the reliable and accurate Remington Model 700 action.

Some of those suits have also charged conspiracies among the firearms companies, which are even harder to prove.

Ordnance found unsatisfactory the first series of prototype carbines submitted by several firearms companies and some independent designers.

All the metal parts were machined to exact specifications, even as other firearms companies embraced the less costly, less precise system of metal stamping.