Newtown Victims' Lawsuits Curbed By NRA-Backed Law

[sasha031]

The massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut may yield new laws to limit the availability of military-style assault weapons. But one thing the latest tragedy will likely not produce: lawsuits against the company that manufactured the gun used in the killings.

Under a controversial law Congress passed seven years ago at the urging of the National Rifle Association, gun manufacturers are explicitly shielded from lawsuits that would seek to hold them liable for crimes committed with weapons they sold.

The 2005 law has drawn attacks from gun control advocates and constitutional scholars, who portray it as a powerful insulator for gun manufacturers. Why should gun manufacturers, they ask, enjoy a special liability protection not available to other companies that make potentially lethal products?


http://huff.to/Ubd6Zw

[onehandle]

1. Assholes. The families should sue the fucking NRA. nt

[liberalhistorian]

3. Yeah, but then Congress would just pass

a law to exempt the NRA from any lawsuits; it's certainly given them everything else they've ever wanted, with little question.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. No standing under current law

Passing one later would be ex post facto

[treestar]

9. Good idea

They can drive them to bankruptcy.

There was a white racist out there a while back who was led to a sort of financial death due to lawsuits and judgments against him. He couldn't hold an asset.

They could go into bankruptcy maybe, but it would cramp their style.

[2naSalit]

2. Some laws can be rescinded. This would be the prime example of that necessity.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Would not help for this incident, only future ones

[2naSalit]

12. Did I suggest that it would have?

I'm fully aware of the fact that rescinding the current laws won't do any good for those children or anyone else killed in such fashion in the past. Tort laws were castrated by sNewt and his gang of thugs back in the early 90's and the Tort laws were being slowly disemboweled prior to that.

Even so, the way the judicial system functions currently, they'd still have a tough time of it even if the Tort laws were not restricting such suits. It wasn't a flippant comment, professor.

[liberalhistorian]

4. What's a really eerie, yet appropriate, coincidence

is that the father of the CEO of the company that made the assault weapon used in the Newtown massacre lives in Newtown; Lawrence O'Donnell did a little piece on that last night. Let's hope his neighbors and fellow townsmen have a little "come to Jesus" talk with him.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. So the sins of the son flow back to the father?

Doesn't it normally go the other way?

[liberalhistorian]

10. From what was reported, the father was a huge

and visible supporter of the organization, if he didn't help start it himself. So, yes, he does also have some blood on his hands.

[2naSalit]

13. Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow

reported about it on their shows last night too. Or one of them did at least. It's not an irony that should be left in the shadows.

[pipoman]

8. Can't sue most companies

who make "potentially lethal products" which are not defective. Misuse of potentially dangerous products is on the misuser. You can't sue Dodge because a drunk driver hit you with a Dodge.

[spanone]

11. repeal this law.

[pipoman]

14. The law has as much to do with

eliminating frivolous lawsuits for the courts. A suit based on an incident such as this could never been victorious because it is about the illegal misuse of a legal implement. The tobacco companies lost because they were proven to have known their product was harmful and failed to warn the users of the product...in fact lied and told the public their product was safe. This is not the case with firearms manufacturers, knife makers, or rat poison sellers. If someone poisons their neighbor with rat poison, the victims family can't sue the poison company...no difference here..and there isn't a law disallowing the suit against the poison company. The suit could be filed, but before it got too far along would be dismissed...this law simply keeps the court from having to read and kick out thousands of suits per/year.