On suing gun manufacturers

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

Legally to sue you must have:

cause of action
n. the basis of a lawsuit founded on legal grounds and alleged facts which, if proved, would constitute all the "elements" required by statute.

It has been said that anyone can sue anyone for anything. You can hire an attorney to file and argue for you. To be successful the court with jurisdiction must accept your case.

Examples: to have a cause of action for breach of contract there must have been an offer of acceptance;

This doesn't fit gun makers since the general public has no contract with them.

...for a tort (civil wrong) there must have been negligence or intentional wrongdoing and failure to perform;

This is where many start. Some take the negligent entrustment route; plaintiffs would need to prove that the sale or transfer was negligent and should not have taken place. These generally don't proceed as proving that is extremely difficult.
In the cases of assault and murder there is wrongdoing but not on the part of the manufacturer.

...for libel there must have been an untruth published which is particularly harmful;

Also not related to guns.

...and in all cases there must be a connection between the acts of the defendant and damages.

In the case of gun violence the only connection between the damages (assault and murder) and the manufacturer are that their guns were used. Makers and sellers of items intrinsically necessary to a crime who are not party to the criminal acts can not be held libel. Has anyone tried suing the vehicle manufacturers where a vehicle was used by a terrorist in an attack? Of course not.

In many lawsuits there are several causes of action stated separately, such as fraud, breach of contract, and debt, or negligence and intentional destruction of property.

You may hate guns.
You may hate people who own guns.
You may hate those make and sell guns.

Hate isn't a cause of action.

[HopeAgain]

1. Let's talk products liability

We have a bump fire stock which has caused a weapon to present an unreasonably dangerous condition that results in foreseeable injuries to others. The real issue is whether the intervening intentional tortious act relieves the gun modification maker from being the "legal cause" of the injury.

Legal cause has always taken into account, especially in products liability cases, public policy considerations, i.e. Making products safer. The strongest argument is that there is NO utility in installing these modifications other than making these guns more deadly. They don't make them useful for accurate target shooting (clearly). They can't be used for safe or sporting hunting. face it, we make automatic weapons to kill more people more quickly. The only other use is the primal gratification some mouth breathers get imagining they are killing a lot of people when they shoot them. From a policy standpoint what should juries see as far as being an unsafe product? products liability is not analyzed using common law torts.

I respectfully disagree These cases might have a shot, depending on the redneck level of the judges and juries.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. re: "The strongest argument is that there is...

...NO utility in installing these modifications other than making these guns more deadly."

I addressed neither bump fire devices nor trigger cranks. However, are you 100% certain that there is no sporting competition, where one of these devices is permitted, where the winner is determined by the number on target rounds he fires within a set time?

Should such a suit move forward and if there is no such competition, I feel rather certain that the manufacturers may sponsor one simply to homulgate their product type.

Call names if it makes you feel better but I was mostly addressing firearm manufactures and dealers.

[Always Right]

4. Utility is a defense, not an element of products liability

According to Cornell
[link:https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/products_liability|]

a Prima Facie Case (for the commercial seller of the defective product) requires that

The defendant sells a product that the plaintiff uses
The defendant is the commercial seller of such a product
The plaintiff suffers an injury
When the defendant sold the item, the item was defective
The defect was an actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury

I don't see anywhere that there was an allegation that the bump stock was defective.

Utility is a defense used when the items is defective to show the defendant is not liable for a design defect if evidence shows that the product’s utility outweighs its inherent risk of harm.


[link:https://www.google.com/patents/US8127658|]

Here you have an item that has been around since at least 2009 with many tens of thousands (if not more) sold and here we are 8 years later with the first instance of criminal misuse (that I'm aware of). That would tend to show that the product is not unreasonably dangerous and was not foreseeable for injuries to others if it took this long to happen with so many of the items sold.

[ClarendonDem]

7. What does the "redneck level" of anyone

Have to do with the viability of a lawsuit? That type of loose slur is why Dems lose everywhere except the coasts.

[ileus]

3. What about emotion and high hopes?

Where do those fit in?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

5. Government by knee-jerk emotion?

I'm sure the founders would approve.

[yagotme]

6. "What about emotion and high hopes?"

"Where do those fit in?"

In a Broadway musical???

"I've got Hi-igh hopes, I've got Hi-igh hopes..."