Gun Industry Immunity from Lawsuits???

[Timber Loftis]

What Horse Puckey. If you didn't do anything wrong, you don't need immunity from a lawsuit. Removing products liability causes of action from the arena concerning guns is just as bad an idea as removing products liability causes of action from suits involving cars.
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A New Push to Grant Gun Industry Immunity From Suits
By JOHN TIERNEY

WASHINGTON, April 3 — Last fall, when Americans were fixated by the serial sniper killings in the suburbs here, Congress postponed voting on legislation protecting the gun industry against lawsuits. Now that most of the guns in the news are being fired by soldiers, not criminals, the industry's defenders seem more ready to be counted.

Beginning a new drive to shield the industry, the House Judiciary Committee today approved a bill giving gun manufacturers and dealers immunity against many suits, including ones already in court brought by shooting victims and municipalities. The suits fault the makers for not adding safety features and for distribution practices that make it easy for criminals to get guns.

With the House and Senate in Republican control and with majorities in both chambers sponsoring the bill, its prospects look strong and could well depend on how a handful of swing senators vote in the event of a filibuster.

In the House Judiciary Committee today, one Democrat, Representative Rick Boucher of Virginia, joined 20 Republicans to approve the bill while 11 Democrats voted against it.

Granting immunity would be a serious setback for advocates of gun control, who have turned to state courts increasingly in recent years after meeting resistance in legislatures. They have denounced the proposed legislation as an unfair favor to an industry and a federal usurpation of states' rights. They say Congress would be denying injured citizens and violence-ridden cities the right to sue companies supplying an illegal underground market in guns.

The other side depicts the suits as an attack on beleaguered small companies by a coalition of wealthy trial lawyers and Democrats with access to municipal treasuries and grants from liberal foundations. Supporters of gun rights say the suits are intended to cripple the industry with legal bills and to impose gun controls outside the democratic process.

"We're trying to stop making public policy through the courts with these nuisance suits," said Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida, who introduced the bill along with 247 co-sponsors.

The Senate version is sponsored by 52 members, enough to pass it unless there is a filibuster by Democrats.

"A filibuster is absolutely an option," said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island. "I can't imagine giving an exemption like this to one industry, especially this one. Toys are more heavily regulated than guns, and there's no immunity for the toy industry against litigation."

Senator Larry E. Craig, the Idaho Republican who is the lead sponsor in the Senate, noted that nine Democrats are sponsoring the bill and predicted that enough more might join Republicans to provide the 60 votes to stop a filibuster.

"I think we'll be successful this session," Mr. Craig said. "The Democrats have found that being aggressive advocates of gun control hasn't worked for them."

Gun control has indeed been a risky issue for Democrats with rural constituencies, and legislatures in more than 30 states have passed laws protecting the gun industry against lawsuits.

Gun control plays well in urban areas, on the other hand, and two dozen cities and counties have filed suits seeking damages for the costs of gun violence. Other suits have been filed by individual victims and by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which sued 165 gun makers and distributors. So far none of the suits have succeeded, and eight have been dismissed.

But advocates of gun control have been heartened by some favorable rulings and by the start of a trial in federal court in Brooklyn for the N.A.A.C.P.'s suit. The president of the N.A.A.C.P., Kweisi Mfume, reacted to the proposed legislation by saying, "Some in Congress, goaded by the gun lobby, are determined to slam the courthouse door in the face of current and future victims of gun violence."

Lawrence Keane, the general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association, estimated that the suits had so far cost the industry more than $100 million in legal fees, which he said was an unfair burden on a relatively small industry with many family-owned businesses.

"These suits are an attempt to blame law-abiding manufacturers for the wrongdoing of criminals," Mr. Keane said. "It's like blaming a drunk-driving accident on General Motors or a brewery."

He noted that the bills in the House and Senate would still allow suits against gun makers and distributors who "knowingly and willfully" violate a law or negligently provide a gun to someone they should know would probably misuse it to injure others.

But the bills would eliminate most of the suits now filed against gun makers and dealers, said Dennis Henigan, legal director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control advocacy group representing many of the municipalities and individuals suing the industry.

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Mr. Henigan said that it would be difficult to prove that a dealer knowingly violated the law, and that it would become impossible to collect damages from manufacturers selling guns to licensed dealers who later supplied the underground market.

"This is an egregious form of special-interest legislation that would bring progress toward safer guns to a screaming halt and make it more difficult for gun violence victims to recover damages," he said. "It would prevent cities from collecting damages against gun manufacturers who maintain a distribution system which they know ensures the continual supply of guns to the illegal market."

Mr. Henigan called the proposed law "a rather radical intrusion by the Congress into the workings of state courts" and said it was hypocritical for conservatives to support the bills while professing to believe in states' rights.

But Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research group, said the legislation would defend the rights of state legislatures against policies imposed by mayors and judges in other states.

"The municipal gun litigation is an utter travesty, and I think the supporters of Second Amendment liberty have every right to seek federal legislation," said Mr. Olson, who analyzes the gun lawsuits in his new book, "The Rule of Lawyers," a critique of trial lawyers. "There is no violation of proper federalism for Congress to pre-empt litigation by which New York intends to forcibly curtail the relatively open gun-selling regimes of states like South Carolina and Virginia."

The proposed legislation is not scheduled yet for a floor vote in either house, but its sponsors said they hoped to see action possibly this spring.

[Djinn Raffo]

You said it all when you said:

If you didn't do anything wrong, you don't need immunity from a lawsuit.

[Azred]

I have always thought that suing a gun manufacturer because their product resulted in someone's death is ridiculous--the gun manufacturer didn't shoot the person! Why aren't people suing auto manufacturers because a relative perished in a car wreck? Well, if they hadn't been sold the car they wouldn't have died in the wreck.... Crazy.

However, gun manufacturers do not need immunity from lawsuits, because what if they sell a defective product? It could happen to any manufacturer....

That particular catch-phrase from the NRA may be trite but it is true: guns don't kill people...people do.

[Timber Loftis]

Ah, there is the products liability issue for Manufacturers.

But, let us also look to the Dealer immunity. A gun dealer can *certainly* be liable for a murder or other injurious use of a gun. And I'm not talking about the obvious ("What, you sold a Kalishnekov to a convicted felon?"), I'm also talking about other situations where one should be liable. I have seen gun dealers refuse to sell to a customer who was clearly half-cocked. Just as I have seen bartenders refuse to serve the guy who's falling off the barstool. And add to immunity the complication that so many guns are sold at gun shows, and you have a recipe for disaster.

I don't want to let anyone completely off the hook for their wrongs.

[Barry the Sprout]

True enough Azred, but not all that many people have been killed when a maniac ran up to them and screamed "BANG!".

Guns don't kill people, people kill people - but the gun certainly helps.

(With apologies to Eddie Izzard)

[DraconisRex]

The problem with the "guns don't kill, people do" arguement is that there is a .92 (1.0 being perfect) correllation between gun availability and murder rates.

There have been many, many, many studies done. Some are US/Canada studies. Some are US/Canada/England. Some include upto 50+ first and second world countries.

Murder rates are broken down by non-gun and gun. For example, in one study it was found the US non-gun murder rate was 1.3X times Canada. That is, we are a more violent society. However, when "gun murders" were compared, our rate was 15.0X that of Canada.

Another study found firearm homicides per million:

Canada 0.60
United States 6.29

Now, yes, people kill people. But they find it much easier to do so when they have guns. And, in fact, if they don't have guns, they have a marked tendency to NOT kill people.

So the statement should probably be written to:

People with guns are 12X more likely to kill people than people without.

[Azred]

I knew I was going to open a Pandora's Box when I quoted the NRA. [img]graemlins/doh.gif[/img]

I agree that gun availability greatly increases the chance that violence and/or death might occur. There are so many people who are "trigger happy" it's almost scary. However, citations of gun-related statistics or the topic of gun control is not what I meant to begin (the thread being about gun manufacturers potentially receiving immunity from civil litigation). Let's save those discussions for other threads, yes? [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

Timber Loftis, that is what I meant--faulty products. No one would want manufacturers to be immune to lawsuits arising from faulty guns that explode or backfire at random (or whatever). However, the law is your bailiwick (whereas mathematics is mine) thus I defer. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

[Timber Loftis]

Another study found firearm homicides per million: Canada 0.60 United States 6.29

Warning - misleading statistic. To properly compare the two nations, you would need to divide the rates between rural and urban areas. You would, IMO, find similar death rates in rural areas and a higher death rate in US cities than Canadian cities. Considering how much more dense and numerous US urban areas are than Canadian urban areas, you would have a fair explanation of how this statistic comes about.

But, of course, taking guns away from people will lower the homicide rate. Taking cars away will lower the number of drunk driving fatality rates, too. So will taking alcohol away. Removing knives from the population will certain decrease deaths due to stabbing. And, cutting everyone's eyes out would certainly hurt the pornography industry.

[DraconisRex]

Murder rates are an appropriate subject regarding the product liability suit. They are a product, that by its use, can cause greivous harm or death to an innocent person through intentional or accidental usage. That is, they are an unsafe product by design.

The difference in murder-rates ties directly to the product, manufactured for profit. Thus, they should be liable when their product, used in the manner for which it is intended, injurs someone.

This isn't any different from the legal theory that ended up taking lawn darts off the lawn. Too many kids and adults, playing with the lawn darts in the manner intended, ended up maimed or dead.

Then we have too many manufacturers skirting our existing gun-control laws. The primary vehicle is by selling to unlicensed dealers who travel from swap-meet to swap-meet.

And by the way, I'm not an "anti-gun" nut, I own two shotguns, one rifle and one pistol. 3 American made, 1 Belgian. But I'm a realist and I do believe in very, very strict licensure of firearms.

[DraconisRex]

"Warning - misleading statistic."

Warning - misleading board member.

These results also hold true for strict urban comparisons. Vancouver, Canada is 60 miles north of Seattle, Washington. We have the same murder-rate pattern in two geographically proximate, culturally proximate cities with only one measurable difference:

The accessibility to firearms.

Sloan JH, Kellerman AL, et al. Handgun regulations, crime, assaults and homicide: a tale of two cities. New Engl J Med 1985;319:1256-62.

And, of course, we ignore Japan which is almost all urban, with a lower, but similar non-firearm rate and a firearm murder rate of 0.03 and has nearly no accessibility to firearms...

Ooops....

"But, of course, taking guns away from people will lower the homicide rate. Taking cars away will lower the number of drunk driving fatality rates, too. So will taking alcohol away. Removing knives from the population will certain decrease deaths due to stabbing. And, cutting everyone's eyes out would certainly hurt the pornography industry. "

Yes, and if we took everyone's air away, they wouldn't exhale CO2 green-house gases. yeah yeah yeah. Another obfiscating arguement from the shallow end of the debate pool.