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Just the facts
begin rant
OK, first off, this is just stupid. As someone mentioned earlier, this is like suing a car manufacturer when you get in an accident. The manufacturer is responsible for making a safe product, not enforcing safe use of the product. (I'll take issue with the whole, "It's a bad design that it has to be in fire to unload in a bit").
After doing some more digging, here is what I found.
The gun that this kid was shot with was a .38 caliber revolver. Some revolvers have a bulit in safety switch, such as Smith & Weson. Others don't, only some rugers have a safety switch. So in total it's about a 50/50 split. The bigest safety on a revolver is your finger but that's another story. The only other "safety" is if the gun is a double action, you will know you are pulling the trigger when doing so...takes quite a bit of pull as compared to if the hammer is cocked.
According to an article on the net, the "safety" this gun has is a trigger lock. A small device that fits around the trigger and trigger guard and locks in place so you don't have access to the trigger. Yes, the trigger lock can prevent you from opening the chamber to unload the gun. Poor design flaw...hell no. Even aftermarket trigger locks do this. This being said, in order to unload the gun, the babysitter had to REMOVE THE TRIGGER LOCK, a device in place so the gun can not be fired. Why did he feel he needed to unload the gun when there was a trigger lock in place? And why did he feel the need to unload the gun in the first place instead of just putting it out of the kids reach?
Here is the breakdown of the award the jury set:
Manufacturer - 10%
Distributer - 30%
Parents - 30%
Babysitter - 20%
I know this only adds up to 90% but this is what the article said. If you haven't been able to guess, I don't think the manufacturer should have to pay anything. The distributer in this case is a pawn shop where the parents bought the gun. I don't think the shop should have to pay anything either. It's a pawn shop for crying out loud. Like the people here know the workings of everything in the store or something. The guy that sold it to them was probably using the gun lock as a selling point.
The parents should pay nothing. Except for maybe putting their kids through gun safety classes since they have guns in the house. And, Yes, I have a child and loaded guns in my house. When my son gets old enough he will learn gun safety and how to handle them. He will also learn they are not toys and not to play with them.
The babysitter should pay everything, but 50.9 million dollars seems a bit excessive. This is the guy that used bad judgement while caring for 2 children. He should not have been trying to unload the gun. What was he going to do, give it back to the kids to play with after he got it unloaded? Put it up out of their reach or something.
I think you should be required to take a gun class and get a purchasing liscense before you are allowed to buy a gun. It would not have helped in this case but it could then be argued that a non-trained person was in operation of a gun he had no businees trying to unload.
If anyone can find more information about this gun, post it in this thread so we can take a look at it.
end rant
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