Moonduck

Note: This may belong in Politics. If so, feel free to move it. I will understand. It's placed here because it deals with Gun Ownership.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAU61BA9ND.html

"Appeals Court Reinstates Wrongful Death Suit Against Gun Industry"
By David Kravets Associated Press Writer
Published: Nov 20, 2003


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court Thursday reinstated a wrongful death lawsuit against the gun industry in a decision expected to re-ignite debate over legislation immunizing gun makers from being sued for crimes committed with their products.

Thirty-three states already have laws exempting gun manufacturers and distributors from such suits. The House in April passed a bill to extend the prohibition on such suits nationwide and President Bush has said he would sign it. Senate Democrats have threatened to filibuster the proposal.

The 2-1 ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstates a lawsuit filed against gun manufacturers and distributors whose weapons were used by a white supremacist who shot a Filipino-American postal worker to death and wounded five people at a Jewish day care center in a 1999 Los Angeles-area rampage.

A Los Angeles federal judge in 2001 had thrown out the case, filed by families of the victims against Georgia-based Glock Inc., China North Industries Corp., RSR Management Corp. and RSR Wholesale Guns Seattle Inc. The case was filed under California negligence and wrongful death statutes.

Messages left with attorneys for the companies were not immediately returned Thursday.

Survivors claimed that several weapons companies produced, distributed and sold more firearms than legal purchasers could buy. In addition, they claimed the industry knowingly participated and facilitated an underground illegal gun market.

"I believe this is the first federal court of appeals decision to sustain a claim like this one," said Peter Nordberg, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Since 1998, at least 33 municipalities, counties and states have sued gun makers, many claiming that manufacturers, through irresponsible marketing, allowed weapons to reach criminals. None of the suits has resulted in a manufacturer or distributor paying any damages.

Private groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also have sued, saying guns "led to disproportionate numbers of injuries, deaths and other damages" among minorities. That case was thrown out of federal court in July.

The gunman in the 1999 shootings, Buford Furrow, is serving life in prison without parole.

The Senate probably will consider the immunity bill early next year, said Will Hunt, spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a leading proponent of the legislation. Craig believes he has the votes to force the bill through the Senate despite filibuster threats, Hunt said.

AP-ES-11-20-03 1552EST

--

Another blow is struck against the twin evils of gun ownership and, worse, personal responsibility.

thencrow

This is retarded. If the gun industry is responsible for people killing other people than what about people who make knives, automobiles, fast food (fatty foods are unhealthy for you), you can kill somebody with a pencil too there is just too many things to list.

It never ceases to amaze me what this society will do.

empu

For those interested in such things, the full opinion (including dissent) can be found here (PDF).

Lebell

Yup,

Politics...

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

2wolves

Or cigarettes.

2Wolves

Conclamo Ludus

Next step. Sue the companies that provide the steel with which guns are made. They are responsible for making something that people use to make something that people use to kill somebody. I'm waiting for somebody to sue God for making "mortality" dangerous to your health.

Surgeon General Warning (to be tatooed on every living child) : Warning living may be hazardous to your health. You are accountable for your own death.

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

Clewd

Although suing the gun manufacturer might seem to be placing fault where it doesn't belong, I still think that it is justified since, unlike other products that the previous poster mentioned, the express purpose of a gun is the injury or death of another living being or the threat of it.

This is probably one reason that suing the cigarette manufacturers will work whereas suing pencil manufacturers won't.

__________________
LiuGuberlorious

Conclamo Ludus

I know, I was going to the extreme on that. Gotta rant sometimes.

That's part of the problem. That isn't the express purpose of a gun. Many people use them for other sports. Target shooting, skeet-shooting. They may be simulating the death of another living being, but there are plenty of people that use them for the sole purpose of having good aim. Its an Olympic event.

I'm not a gun owner, or hunter, but I can respect the fact that guns don't mean "kill" to everyone that owns one. Archery, Fencing, Knife-throwing, etc. these are sports that sprang out of killing, but have simply become sports.

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

Liquor Dealer

I think Conclamo Ludus had it right but he missed it a little - he said it was the company that made the wheels for the machine that made the gun - serious error in this - it had to have been the steel manufacturer that made the steel that was used to make the ......

__________________
Life isn't always a bowl of cherries, sometimes it's more like a jar of Jalapenos --- what you say or do today might burn your ass tomorrow!!!

Conclamo Ludus

Thanks LD

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

Phaenx

Sue the 9th circuit. Appointing judges seems kind of evil, when you run for office you normally try not to piss off the other wing, these guys can piss us off at will without worrying about it.

I think Arnold should bust in there with guns blazing before they finish eating everyones soul.

__________________
"I went shopping last night at like 1am. The place was empty and this old woman just making polite conversation said to me, 'where is everyone??' I replied, 'In bed, same place you and I should be!' Took me ten minutes to figure out why she gave me a dirty look." --Some guy

nanofever

"Survivors claimed that several weapons companies produced, distributed and sold more firearms than legal purchasers could buy. In addition, they claimed the industry knowingly participated and facilitated an underground illegal gun market."

If you facilitate a black market and a gun from that market kills somebody, then you are an accessory to the killing.

__________________
I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

Tophat665

OK, let's look at it this way: With cigarettes, there are only so many people of legal smoking age, only so many of whom smoke, and one can determine by statisitical sampling how many cigarettes they smoke (within a smallish margin of error. 3 to 5% at a guess). Tobacco degrades to unusable over time, so smokers who buy in bulk will tend to buy just as much as they can smoke before the cigarettes go stale (within a larger margin of error. Longtime smokers will be closer, new smokers will be both less likely to buy the correct amount and less likely to buy in bulk at all). The upshot of this long digression is that the demand for cigarettes can be guaged pretty closely. If the cigarette companies poduce more than that, it is either bad business practice, and the shareholders should take them to task, or supplying an illegal demand, and the gov't should penalize them heavily.

Same principal with guns, but even more so, since guns are durable. How many handguns does one need? Beyond a few armed professionals (PIs, Police, rent-a-cops), target shooting enthusiasts, and collectors, the answer is either zero or one. Further, the number of people who will need more than one of the same gun would have to be vanishingly small. In fact, the only reasons anyone would have for buying more than two of the same gun would be to arm others with that gun, either as legally as a licensed dealer, or illegally.

It has almost got to be the contention of this lawsuit (I am too lazy to read legalese on my leisure time) that the oversupply of guns is so dramatic that it admits of no other possibility but that some significant potion of them cannot be absorbeed by legal demand without it generating a marked downward pressure on hand gun prices as a whole, and, since the prices are not dropping rapidly (a la DVD player or Pentium CPU prices) the demand seviced must be greater than the possible legal demand and further, it must be so much greater that the manufacturers and distributors would be grossly negligent or wilfully blind (which amounts to the same thing) to not notice it.

Now, without actually looking at the data and the lawsuit, I can be sure that this is the case, but it doesn't seem to me to be an unreasonable contention - not ridiculous, merely arguable.

Some of you have been trying to do the reductio ad absurdum thing by saying they should go after the steel makers. Big difference: Steel can be made into a myriad of products, a bare few of which are designed exclusively for killing.

Guns, and particularly handguns, and more particularly the cheap handguns that these lawsuits are about, are designed solely to kill people. They are not accurate enough for target shooting at any kind of range, or for hunting, and, besides, an economically challenged urbanite who says they are buying a handgun for hunting is either deluded or dishonest. Buyinf for protection is another thing entirely, but I do not dispute the legal market, merely that it seems likely that the gum manufacturers are producing more than that market will absorb, yet not seeing downward cost pressure, implying a second market....

My argument has begun to repeat itself, but I hope I have made my points.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Peetster

That's an excellent argument, Tophat. I'd have a tough time arguing against it directly in court. Here's a purely legal thought:

I don't have the data, but I guess I'd start by questioning the number of illegal guns compared to legal. I'd try to make the fraction of market pressure provided by the illegal guns insignificant to nonexistant. I'd also point out that most illegal guns used in large scale crime are not low tech, and were obtained illegally. This typically means stolen from a legal owner. If supply limits the replacement of this legally obtained firearm, demand will artificially escalate the replacement cost at a loss to the insurer, not the insured. That should get the attention and support of the insurance racket, er, conglomerate.

Finally, I'd point out that if the supply of guns used in the commission of a crime were obtained legally, then amnesty gun purchase programs would not work. Police typically pay only a fraction of the gun's legitamate value, a value the owner could certainly recover if the weapon wasn't stolen or used in the commission of a crime. The fact is, however, police sponsored amnesty programs are hugely successful. Therefore, guns used by the criminal element are not being supplied directly through manufacturer, but through a different resale or supply vector altogether.

*edited for spelling

debaser

How many cars does one need? Or plates, suits, TVs, etc? Why should there be an artificial limit on the the ownership of the one item you are garaunteed the right to own in the Bill of Rights? If I want to own 10,000 guns and can do so responsibly and legally, then what is the issue? The arguement that the gun "industry knowingly participated and facilitated an underground illegal gun market" is falacious. Every gun that comes off of an assembly line is sold to a licensed dealer. If there is a black market link, then it is on the dealer level, and individual dealers should be prosecuted if they are participating in such activities.

The manufacturers are producing a legal product in response to legal demand for that product. Last time I checked that was legal in the US.

__________________

Tophat665

You are missing the point, probably because I didn't make it well. It's not so much a matter of whether or not one has the right to buy 10,000 guns as it is that one will only expend their resources on what they need or think they need. People who have multiple firearms with similar functional purposes (hunting rifles, target pistols, derringers) have sunk a huge chunk of change into them for some reason other than their functionality, in response to some other percieved need (status, for instance). The bottom line of the need argument is not that it should be impossible for a person to buy a ridiculous number of firearms, but that there is going to be a statisically predictable number of people who will, and that they will be a small minority of gun owners. The vast majority of gun owners will own one gun to a purpose.

My dad, f'rinstance, had one pistol for target shooting, one 12 gague shotgun for hunting, one 410 shotgun for skeet and to teach my brother and I to shoot, and a 22 rifle for target and varmint shooting. For home defense, he had a baseball bat. (Small house, short encounter range, and a kid probably can't kill himself with a baseball bat.) My granddad had the same, except his pistol was an old military one that he kept as memoribilia. I have no need for a gun, so I don't own one. At some point, I may develop a need for a skeet and varmint gun, so I may get a 410. I rely on a (n unsharpened) broadsword for home defense.

When you make a killing product, I would say that you have a higher degree of responsibility to make sure you are selling it to a responsible user. I agree that dealers knowing selling to criminals should be held responsible. In fact, I would say that they would become an accessory to every crime facilitated by every gun they sold to any one who would have been exposed as a criminal with due diligence. Similarly, gum manufacturers have a responsibility to not sell their product to dealers who habitually sell to criminals. Given that guns are sold at a place, statistical can be used to determine where there is a local oversupply, and, if that oversupply nonetheless moves, it does not move to a legitimate market.

Stipulated: Guns are legal. Though I am uncomfortable with the general disregard for the "militia" aspect of the 2nd ammendment, I agree that current legal thought holds that the 2nd amendment allows any responsible adult to own a gun or as many guns as they care to or other weapons that do not present a clear and present danger to their neighbors (bomb making, f'rinstance, is not protected). I support that. I hold it in every bit as high esteem as the first amendment. If you are correct that the demand is legal, or even that there is no reasonable way for the gun manufacturers to discover that it is illegal, then this lawsuit will fail. If you are incorrect, though, then this is not a second ammendment matter, it is a matter of aiding and abetting violent criminals.

While it would be disingenuous to say that those who bring the lawsuit are not trying to undermine the 2nd ammendment thereby, if that is all the suit seeks, then it would be laughed out of court. If it were the primary purpose, it would be sternly rejected. If, however, it is about willful ignorance on the part of dealers and manufacturers, then it has merit and should be litigated.

I'm not even saying that it is necessarily true that gun manufacturers are liable, merely that it is not a ridiculous assertion and it should be investigated.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

debaser

This is the crux of the problem. Gun manufacturers have no such responsibility. It is the responsibility of the government to regulate the dealers. If a dealer is habitually selling directly to criminals or even indirectly through "straw man" purchasers then it is the governments responsibility, as the regulatory authority, to remove their license and or prosecute them as accessories to any crimes committed.

If the problem still exists after the proper channels have been investigated (ATF, dealers) then I see no problem with looking at manufacturers. Untill then the 9th Circuit is just putting the cart before the horse.

__________________

Tophat665

And that is where we are going to disagree. My take is if you produe a lethal product, you have a higher standard of responsibility, and if you don't then you should, and if congress won't do it, then I'll take an activist court.

But, even if you are correct, let it be litigated and that way the question gets answered, because it will go all the way up to SCOTUS if the gun makers lose.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Lebell

The problem I have with this argument is that "lethal" can be applied to many products; it all depends on how they are used.

Baseball bats, tire irons, kitchen knives, all can be lethal weapons when used as such.

I know I know, your argument is that guns are the only of these intented only for killing.

But that isn't true.

I knife is intented to separate material from other material (cutting). It is what it is that we are cutting that determines if the use is illegal.

Similiarly, a gun is intented to throw a piece of metal (a bullet) at high speed. So, it is what we are throwing that piece of metal at that determines if the use is legal.

So in the end, if the knife doesn't break because of poor workmanship, the gin isn't contaminated at the plant, the car is designed so it doesn't blow up, the gun is built so it doesn't explode, etc., the responsibility is with the person who misuses the item, NOT with the manufacturer.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

debaser

.

__________________

santafe5000

Why do the court's always seem to miss the point on this particular set of cases. Guns don't kill people- people kill people. A gun by itself can not do anything on it's own. It takes an outside influence to make it fire, ie.... pull the trigger, drop on the hammer, or place in a situation that would cause corrosion to the ammunition. These cases would not show up in the court's if Tort reform was put in place across the US. If the law firm's had to pay damages to the defendant in cases that their firm's lost, you would see a lot fewer of these type's of cases. As long as they are shielded from these losses, they sue anybody they can think of, no matter the baselessness of the case.

__________________
When all else fails, QUIT.

Conclamo Ludus

There are a lot of good arguments here. I appreciate tophat for making a well-detailed opinion. I still disagree with the premise. I think the government should hold the responsibility of keeping registered dealers in line, not the gunmakers. I would assume that this is why dealers have to register. I understand tophat's argument about the supply and demand being predictable, but I don't think laws should be enacted to put this reponsibility in the hands of the gun manufacturers. If this was the case, it might be even worse.

I was unaware about a lot of details surrounding this issue, and I actually learned a lot reading this thread. I wish tilted politics was normally this civilized.

I have to say I am in agreement with debaser and lebell on this one. I find it too constricting to define a gun as having a sole purpose to cause injury or death to another living thing. tophat did well to not ignore this point stating that some weapons are far too inaccurate to be used for target practice etc, this surprised me, I don't know why you would want a gun that is too inaccurate to be used to hit a target at any range, but nevertheless tophat didn't dodge that one.

Good thread. Thanks guys.

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

Sparhawk

I've never liked these comparisons, they've always seemed very straw-man to me. A much better comparison in my opinion is to compare guns to explosives. Just like guns, explosives have many legal purposes, all of which are non-lethal (of course). Collapsing buildings, building roads, destroying UXO. And, like guns, they have the capacity to kill large numbers of people.

Obviously this is an argument over which reasonable people can disagree, but I laugh whenever someone compares a

<img src="http://daphne.palomar.edu/jsaw/prints/gun2.jpg" alt="Saturday Night Special">

to a

<img src="http://www.planet.eon.net/~matth/k_images/kitchen/chef.jpg" alt="Kitchen Knife">

Conclamo Ludus

There aren't liesure activities that involve explosives, as far as I know, fireworks aside. As much as I'd love to see an olympic sport involving who can set the most creative charge, I don't expect it anytime soon.

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

KnifeMissile

I'm very glad to see how this debate is progressing. It's as if all the trolls had taken a vacation! Honestly, I wonder where they went...

Anyway, I think the article was poorly summarized by the first paragraph. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the 9'th circuit is saying that the firearm manufacturers are simply liable for crimes commited with their products but, rather, that they are not automatically immune to such lawsuits! All this means is that they will actually have to defend themselves in court. This doesn't seem like such a bad thing, especially considering we're talking about a civil court, not a criminal one.

Now, if a gun manufacturer deliberately sold their guns to a black market (part of what the lawsuit is contending) then I think they should be liable! Are they guilty? How would you know unless you conduct an investigation? That will never happen while they are immune to such lawsuits, right? Hence, I don't see this as such an unreasonable thing...

Sparhawk

How could I forget about fireworks, DUH! Thanks Conclamo Ludus. Great idea for a sport too.

debaser

I agree 100%, they should also no longer be allowed to manufacture guns if they are guilty of such behavior. That being said, allowing people to sue the industry for how their product is used would open a huge can of worms in the form of anti-gun activist lawsuits, which simply try to skirt the judical process by raising the operating cost of the manufacturors.

__________________

Moonduck

The "utomatically immune" phrase came into play when the courts recognized that a profusion of suits were being brought against firearms manufacturers, and these torts were consistently being shot. Very consistently. The court exercised it's ability to shoot down frivolous lawsuits, in essence showing its' awareness that these neverending lawsuits were simply the products of those groups whose aim it is to see the firearms manufacturing industry crippled and destroyed.

Basically, if a gun maker is sued, even if the case is utter tripe and a guanrateed loser, the manufacturer is still forced to pay horrendous court fees. Countersuits to recover said court fees are a gamble, both because they produce even more fees and because the plaintiffs in these suits are generally penniless comparatively, and recovering any fees that they have a slim chance of winning would be impossible.

The response of various legislators providing immunity to gunmakers is a direct, if heavy-handed response to the frivolous lawsuits being aimed at gunmakers. Tort Reform would make far more sense. Make the plaintiff pay the defendants legal fees if the plaintiff's case is found to be without merit. That would stop a lot of these garbage torts going on now. Of course Tort Reform will never happen as lawyers make up the vast percentage of legislative bodies and they ade their fortunes off tort, and the companies they'll work for once they leave office make their fortunes off torts.

As to the "lethal product" argument, guns are strictly inanimate objects. They are, without fail, built to extremely high safety standards. The accidental discharges of 60 years ago are almost unheard of today. As such, the only discharges that matter, are the intentional ones, or the ones caused by negligence on the part of the operator. ANY product can be misused. Using a gun to commit a crime is misusing the gun, as much as using spray paint to get high by huffing is a misuse of spray paint. Is the spray paint manufacturer liable when their product is misused? Is a car maker liable when a drunk driver kills someone?

Finally, in reference to the oversupply line of reasoning, I ask how you would control that? Would you issue each person a bag limit on firearms purchases? As a manufacturer, it is your responsibility to produce as many units as you can sell, period. Your shareholders demand that. I realize that you have a solidly predictable example in your cigarette argument, but cigarettes are consumables, and, to those addicted, a necessity. Necessities behave diferently than luxury purchase items like gun. Ask any gun dealer if they can predict how many guns they'll sell in a month down to 3% margin of error. Unless they're a very large dealer, it won't happen.