Could Martin O'Malley's plan to end gun violence work?

[NCTraveler]

In addition to requiring universal background checks on all gun sales and raising the minimum age to possess a handgun from 18 to 21, the former Maryland governor’s plan also calls for the repeal of a 2005 federal law that protects firearm manufacturers and dealers from legal liability when their products are involved in crimes.

Supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act has become a national standard for gun crime litigation, and has been adopted by 34 states as well. It was cited, for instance, in a judge’s dismissal of a Colorado lawsuit brought by the parents of one of the victims in the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting.

"It wasn’t until 2005 that Congress shielded gun manufacturers from the same sort of product liability responsibility that other products would have. There’s an ability and you can have standards and ways to make your product safer, in order to safeguard human life, you have a duty to do that,” Mr. O’Malley said at an event in New York Monday. “And so I believe this was nothing short of the NRA flexing its political muscle to shield the gun manufacturers.”

But beyond political strategies, O’Malley does have a history of gun-control ordinances as a two-term governor. Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 26 people dead in Newtown, Conn., he signed into legislation the Maryland Firearm Safety Act of 2013, which banned high-capacity magazines and 45 models of assault weapons. Aside from background checks, Maryland laws require fingerprint licensing and mandatory safety training, and provides law enforcement the authority to shut down dealers whose guns result in a disproportionate number of crimes.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0915/Could-Martin-O-Malley-s-plan-to-end-gun-violence-work-video

[NCTraveler]

1. So looking forward to the debates.

"Deeming it a national “sickness,” Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley is pledging to take federal action against gun violence, seeking to cut the national death toll by half within 10 years."

[Travis_0004]

2. If we can sue gun manufactures, can we also sue budweiser after a DUI

Maybe sue chevy as well if a corvette is going 100 mph and kills somebody?

[NCTraveler]

3. If Budweiser is found to be negligent in advertising over drinking. I don't care.

If Chevy advertises their car as a race car, and one kills someone racing on public roads, I don't care. I'm don't with the conservative thought process of protecting the largest corporations in this country from their own responsibilities.

"We can also sue Budweiser after a DUI." If they are found to have supported such actions, class action time.

Keep fighting to protect some of the largest corporations in the world with their own bought and paid for legislation.

[Hoyt]

4. If Budweiser runs ads similar to these, yes.

[Travis_0004]

5. What about unsafe driving in car commercials?

It always says "professional driver, closed course, do not attempt."

Plus does anybody really need 300 horsepower?

[Hoyt]

6. Does anyone really need a gun in their pants to go to Chuck E Cheese?

[HereSince1628]

7. I think the plan is inadequate re gun suicide, the leading cause of US gun deaths

Although many studies positively correlate the presence of a gun in the home with gun suicide, there isn't very good evidence that purchases of guns are highly correlated with gun suicide.

Long waiting periods have been found to reduce suicide rates, but marginally.

Similarly gun-buy backs have been found to reduce gun suicide rates, but marginally.

Although suicide rates are higher among leading causes of death in people under 25, gun suicides in people under 25 are only a smaller fraction of total suicides by gun. Consequently, focus on age-restrictions for legal purchases, even if completely effective in keeping guns away from people under 21, would only reduce gun suicide by a small fraction.

Individually the measures mentioned in the outline of the plan on O'Malley's website aren't known to provide significant reduction for gun suicide solutions, and the sums of these efforts seem destined to fall significantly short of what is necessary to get to cutting US gun deaths in half. So the answer to this being the end of gun violence is very probably not.

IMO nothing is going to be perfectly effective, and I'm all for reducing gun deaths even if O'Malley's goal can't be reached. What has to be hoped for is that the summation of many different control efforts leads to reductions in gun deaths that significantly move the US toward incidence rates of gun death occurrence in countries similar to us.