Discussion for article #241748
I’d be interested in what sort of evidence there was, what the warnings signs were, that this store knowingly sold to straw purchasers. Damn AP articles always have holes like that in them. I know it’s been suggested that a limit on purchasing guns, say one a month, would help curb the straw purchases, but of course the gun groups all scream “what about the collectors waaahhh” and “first registration then confiscation and tyranny waahhhh” pretty much as you’d expect. And those shield laws, isn’t that nice? What sort of legitimate business needs that?
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One way to get the guns out of circulation would be to engage the industry in product liability lawsuits. When a product is used as intended and it hurts someone, U.S. law allows you to sue the manufacturer for damages.
There’s a goldmine there, and lawsuits by the thousands could drive manufacturers out of business…if not for the fact that Republicans passed a bill in the 1990s early 2000s that exempted the firearms industry from such lawsuits.
While it would be interesting to see this case become a catalyst for gun law reform, I suspect it will simply inspire Republicans to pass a bill exempting retailers from such lawsuits.
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That particular law was not supposed to shield companies from negligence lawsuits. The fact that it has been interpreted and used to shield them from such lawsuits is a huge problem.
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http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/violations-prompted-little-change-at-badger-guns-owner-testifies-b99589197z1-330437111.html This has some more detail. The part where Burton was helping Collins fill out the form is pretty damning if you ask me.
In general I’m in favor of the kind of shield law that protects the dealer from liability in the case of a person with no record suddenly shooting his wife or something, because there are indeed limits on what a dealer can be expected to catch–they aren’t certified psychoanalysts. But this store systemically played fast and loose with their business and was cited 130 times for it, so in this instance I would agree with you.
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If a product works as intended then I doubt there is a basis for a lawsuit. So, when a handgun kills, injures or wounds someone, then it’s working as intended.
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The law in question was passed in 2005, after the gun manufacturer and dealer related to the D.C. sniper cases were sued, and ultimately settled out of court for $2.5 million.
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Thanks for that, it filled in the picture you’d suspect of a shop that boosted its profits by not being overly fussy and slipped over the line into a place where the liability was assured for a gun that was actually used in a crime. Oopsie.
In principle I can agree with you about a shield law that protects the manufacturer when an owner simply misuses that product. We could probably have an interesting discussion comparing liability issues with cars and guns. But but but! I really am concerned about straw purchases. They’re specifically meant to put guns in the wrong hands, hugely contributing to the 100 or so non-mass-shooting injuries and deaths every day, and there are ways we could curb them if the gun groups would at least consider them. So far paranoia has prevailed.
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This is where I have to disagree. Back up and look at the meta issue here. Guns, particularly handguns are made for the expressed purpose of injuring or killing another human being. People don’t hunt with handguns, and target practice is ultimately practice for shooting.
Now I can agree that lawsuits are probably not the best way to handle the situation, but it sort of screams out in big red letters to me, that we have to provide immunity to an industry that exists to harm people, then there is probably some questions we need to be asking about that industry.
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This wasn’t just somebody missing a warning sign. The gun dealer is lucky he wasn’t charged with aiding and abetting the straw purchaser. He lost his license.
This case is a small victory for gun sanity.
As a competitive shooter I have bought several guns from a friend of mine who is a dealer. Every time he has me fill out the forms. He asks to see my Photo ID. He follows the law to the letter. He knows me, but he doesn’t take short cuts. That is the way he should do it,.
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Meh. This is because they were white cops. If this was a black family from the inner city of Chicago suing a gun store owner for the same kind of negligence, the defense attorney would probably argue and the mostly white jury would probably consider it contributory negligence that they chose to be black and live in the inner city.
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Generally speaking, negligence requires that the consequences be reasonably foreseeable, so most of the shield laws are in fact designed to go beyond that, i.e., to make it no matter whether the purchaser’s gun violence was foreseeable. They want these people selling guns with impunity. It raises interesting questions tho…what, in this context, is foreseeable? How should you interpret it when a disheveled and obviously poor person comes in to buy an AR-15, can’t read or write and needs help filling out the proper forms, etc.? What about an obviously wealthy white person who has, for some odd reason, chosen to show up to buy a gun in a neighborhood in which he clearly doesn’t “belong”? What about someone who is visibly agitated in some way? On the flip side of it all, how much do we have to protect the gun store owner from Section 1983 lawsuits claiming civil rights were violated for a refusal to sell the gun? How much abuse of “foreseeable” would we see (e.g., refusing to sell to any Muslims or black people…because something something turrerists or “statistics”?)? Any laws that get written on this subject…as HRC is suggesting she’ll push…will need to be pretty tight, explicit and clear, because they will absolutely face a barrage of SCOTUS cases ranging from the ridiculous to the legit.
Perhaps one of the most famous cases you read in law school:
http://www.lawnix.com/cases/palsgraf-long-island-railroad.html
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So I have a question about that case.
I get the court’s ruling and I get the dissent. But neither one addresses what to me, would seem to be a pretty major factor which is…the scales were owned by Long Island Rail, so why don’t they have a responsibility to ensure that they were safely mounted? Surely the possibility of explosions and crashes was plausible enough to merit such mounting.
Yet the entire focus was on the handling of the package of fireworks.
To the courts example of what happened if the handlers had purposely thrown the package down? They would have caused an explosion that would have dismounted the scales that they were responsible for…i.e, the would have caused structural damage to areas under their control. How are they not liable for that?
Even with the obvious violations and the problems with actual purchase, I can’t help but think the only reason this lawsuit was successful is because it was two Cops that were shot. Had it been anyone else I really doubt it would have turned out this way.
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More victims and their families should be suing the “responsible” gun owners and sellers whose actions with that property injured or killed. Just like with cars or property, you should show reasonable precautions and have liability insurance for anything which can cause liability. Whether it’s an injury from a gun or a pit bull, there will be consequences that be addressed.
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These gun nuts would change their tune, and help us have better protection against guns if more cops and law enforcement professionals would get over their love affair with the Republicans and actually devote themselves to public safety, including their own!
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Because the court found there was no way they could know the package was dangerous. If they had no reasonable way to know, they can’t be held liable for what they didn’t know could happen.
But this sets a legal precedent. It counts.
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But obviously the scales were mounted in such a manner that an explosion, a reasonable expectation in a train yard, could cause them to fall. Obviously, because they did in fact become dismounted and fall when an explosion occurred.
My point is, its not about whether or not they knew the package contained explosions, its about negligence in the mounting of the scales. I mean, we are talking about an explosion that occurred at the other end of the station. Would they have stayed mounted from a large shock occurring nearer, like say a heavy cart slamming into them,
No, it starts with what caused the scales to fall. If the explosion was deemed foreseeable, they would have moved on to the scales. If the explosion was deemed foreseeable and everything reasonable was done to mount the scales (maybe they couldn’t be mounted at all or the railroad followed all required specifications) then Pfalsgraf still loses. It would be wholly unmanageable to hold people/companies responsible for reasonably unforeseen circumstances.
That said, the bar of knowing what could be in the package could be fairly low. If they were hauling a bunch of fireworks conventioneers or something else that could require a reasonable assumption, the package could be dangerous then we get to the scales.
Then we get to the legal doctrine of proximate cause.
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