Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: john9001 on October 20, 2005, 01:14:23 PM
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without comment
Lawsuit Shield
October 20, 2005 12:16 PM EDT
WASHINGTON - Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority Thursday, passing a bill protecting the firearms industry from massive crime-victim lawsuits. President Bush said he will sign it.
"Our laws should punish criminals who use guns to commit crimes, not law-abiding manufacturers of lawful products," Bush said in a statement.
The House voted 283-144 to send the bill to the president after supporters, led by the National Rifle Association, proclaimed it vital to protect the industry from being bankrupted by huge jury awards. Opponents, waging a tough battle against growing public support for the legislation, called it proof of the gun lobby's power over the Republican-controlled Congress.
"This legislation will make the unregulated gun industry the most pampered industry in America," said Kristen Rand, director of the Violence Policy Center.
Under the measure, as many as 20 pending lawsuits by local governments against the industry would be dismissed. The Senate passed the bill in July.
The bill's passage was the NRA's top legislative priority and would give Bush and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill a rare victory at a time when some top GOP leaders are under indictment or investigation.
"Lawsuits seeking to hold the firearms industry responsible for the criminal and unlawful use of its products are brazen attempts to accomplish through litigation what has not been achieved by legislation and the democratic process," House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., told his colleagues.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, did not vote. He is in Texas in connection with his indictment in an alleged scheme to violate state election law.
Propelled by GOP election gains and the incidents of lawlessness associated with the passing of Hurricane Katrina, support for the bill has grown since a similar measure passed the House last year and was killed in the Senate.
Horrific images of people without the protection of public safety in New Orleans made a particular impression on viewers who had never before felt unsafe, according to the gun lobby.
"Americans saw a complete collapse of the government's ability to protect them," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president.
"That burnt in, those pictures of people standing there defending their lives and defending their property and their family," he added, "where the one source of comfort was a firearm."
With support from four new Republicans this session of Congress, the bill passed the Senate for the first time in July. House passage never was in doubt because it had 257 co-sponsors, far more than the 218 needed to pass.
The bill's authors say it still would allow civil suits against individual parties who have been found guilty of criminal wrongdoing by the courts.
Opponents say the strength of the bill's support is testament to the influence of the gun lobby. If the bill had been law when the relatives of six victims of convicted Washington-area snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo sued the gun dealer from which they obtained their rifle, the dealer would not have agreed to pay the families and victims $2.5 million.
"It is shameful that Republicans in Congress are pushing legislation that guarantees their gun-dealing cronies receive special treatment and are above the law," said Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Calif.
Bush has said he supports the bill, which would prohibit lawsuits against the firearms industry for damages resulting from the unlawful use of a firearm or ammunition. Gun makers and dealers still would be subject to product liability, negligence or breach of contract suits, the bill's authors say.
Democrats and Republicans alike court the NRA at election time, and the bill has garnered bipartisan support. But the firearms industry still gave 88 percent of its campaign contributions, or $1.2 million, to Republicans in the 2004 election cycle.
Gun control advocates, meanwhile, gave 98 percent of their contributions, or $93,700, to Democrats that cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
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The bill is S. 397.
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Bout time they passed this. Suing Colt/Springfield/Baretta etc etc because someone in your family got shot by one would the same as suing Ford because a drunk driver was in a Crown Victoria when they hit you.
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Excellent.
Finally, some good news in Washington.
:aok
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So what happens if a firearm is proven to be defective and causes injury/death?
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Originally posted by Yeager
So what happens if a firearm is proven to be defective and causes injury/death?
That's a different story. Negligence on the part of the manufacturer that ends in death/dismemberment can still result in a lawsuit.
This law is to stop Betty Blowjob from crying "oh my son was in a gang, and got shot by a Baretta in a driveby, so I'm suing Baretta for making the gun that killed my kid!"
Least that's the way I understood it.
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Originally posted by Yeager
So what happens if a firearm is proven to be defective and causes injury/death?
so what happens if yeager goes to the govt web site and reads senate bill S397?
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IMHO, this should be a state issue, not a federal one.
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Originally posted by Sandman
IMHO, this should be a state issue, not a federal one.
As should just about everything the Feds do. But as long as they're suing in federal court, it's governed by federal law.
Poor interstate commerce clause.
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As should just about everything the Feds do. But as long as they're suing in federal court, it's governed by federal law.
Bang on.
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this is why we need to elect republicans and to support the NRA.
the law protects honest merchants from frivolous lawsuits like those that destroyed the private aircraft industry.... this is not at all "unprecedented" in that private aircraft manufacturers were first to benifiet from this type of protection.
Firearms manufactureres will still be liable for faulty products... Not ones that work as advertised..
Because of this bill... a new bill based on it to protect "fast food" makers from friovolous lawsuits (making people fat) is in the works.
If anything should be up to the feds this is it. manufacturers (citizens) should be protected from having their lives and livelyhood ruined by frivolous lawsuits.
you did notice that all the enemies of fairness were democrats right?
lazs
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I'd really like to see the legislation on interstate transport worked out.. lotta RV'ers are handicapped on state regulations. Just having a Rifle in your rig can land you in jail and your rig impounded in some states even though you are just passing thru with no intent to use the thing.
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well... there is the second amendment talking about the right to keep and bear arms and all.... If the feds and the supremes every got a spine and heard it.... those kinds of laws would no longer be a problem. Good thing republicans put in the last couple of supremes...
klinton put in bader ginsburg... think that former aclu commie is a friend to the second amendment?
lazs
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Originally posted by Tarmac
As should just about everything the Feds do. But as long as they're suing in federal court, it's governed by federal law.
Poor interstate commerce clause.
Thing is you can't sue 'class action' in state court. All the lawyers know that "class action' is where the BIG money is.
Here is how it would work. They would find multiple homicides perpetrated with the same gun, then file a class action suit enlisting anyone who had any family member killed buy this gun as plaintiffs.
Whether you approve of guns or not this is a good law.
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so what happens if yeager goes to the govt web site and reads senate bill S397?
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Yeager would get sleepy......
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I think the proceeds collected by the various governments agencies from the tobacco lawsuits should be refunded to the companies.
shamus
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Originally posted by Clifra Jones
Thing is you can't sue 'class action' in state court.
Yes you can
shamus
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This bill, very necessary, is really an indictment of our legal system and the abuses occuring as a result of special interest groups and greedy lawyers.
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Look like the Gun lobby work a lot better than the Tobacco lobby
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And I'm thankful for that.
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ever wonder why there are allways flu vaccine shortages in the US year after year......there are very few makers of vaccines PERIOD in the US. All it takes is 1 person to suffer complications and get sick or even worse die as a result and they go bankrupt. What's the point of making a product if you are going to get sued for it, even if it does alot for the greater good.
Personally I don't know how anyone can logically disagree with this peice of law.....key word "logically". I've read bits and pieces were liberals are crying that the gun industry is "above the law" but that's just nonsense imho.
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Gunslinger, can you name the lawyer who was the first to sue the Vaccine Makers after his client got sick?
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
Gunslinger, can you name the lawyer who was the first to sue the Vaccine Makers after his client got sick?
nope I just hear it all the time on the news. "Flue vaccine shortage this year, how will it effect you?"
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Originally posted by Shamus
I think the proceeds collected by the various governments agencies from the tobacco lawsuits should be refunded to the companies.
shamus
Yes those darned gun manufacturers always told us "bullets did no real damage and how could a gun be deadly?"
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Originally posted by Vulcan
Yes those darned gun manufacturers always told us "bullets did no real damage and how could a gun be deadly?"
No, I think it goes kinda like GUNS dont kill people, people do...dont recall the "bullet" thing.
shamus
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I was going to say it was John Edwards, but snopes says not.
Notice how life was so much more fun before Snopes?
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Originally posted by Shamus
No, I think it goes kinda like GUNS dont kill people, people do...dont recall the "bullet" thing.
shamus
Hmm you're right I just dug an early 1900's advert from Colt where it says "putting a loaded gun in your mouth and firing it has absolutely no detrimental health effects and is recognised as a cure for many ailments". Now all we need to do is dig up some internal memo's of gun manufacturers showing that they in fact knew guns were lethal weapons but tried to cover it up!
Lets sue em I say!
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I can't believe some of you are stupid enough to compare this with the tobacco company lawsuits.
In the case of the tobacco companies... they were sued because they knew they had a harmfull product if used and they hid the fact..... they also hid the fact that it was addictive and buried their research.
in the private plane industry... if a person flew drunk and crashed into a mountain the private plane industry was sued for making a dangerous product... same for guns.
I don't think anyone taking up smoking today could or should be able to sue the tobacco companies tho.
lazs
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Originally posted by Vulcan
Hmm you're right I just dug an early 1900's advert from Colt where it says "putting a loaded gun in your mouth and firing it has absolutely no detrimental health effects and is recognised as a cure for many ailments". Now all we need to do is dig up some internal memo's of gun manufacturers showing that they in fact knew guns were lethal weapons but tried to cover it up!
Lets sue em I say!
For what? Darwinisim? They should get an award for thinning the herd of morons.
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I cant believe that some people are stupid enough to claim that that it came as a big shock that tobacco is bad for you due to the tobacco companies not telling us.
The government has been warning us since the 60's and common sense told you even before then that it cant be good for you.
Kinda looks like some of you are selective in your nanny statism.
shamus
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Shamus, big tobacco's known their product kills since the 60's. The info didn't stop their marketing to kids and the additives to lock you in. How they did business then, how they do business now are two different things.
Comparing big tobacco to Cessna or Remington or McDonalds is kinda like comparing Dacau to Leavenworth.
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shamus... you don't make any sense... I think all products that work as advertised should be protected. The people or companies that make them shoud have that right.
in the case of tobacco... you are right... most people allways knew that it was harmfull to smoke but we didn't know how much and... the tobacco company did know how much and not only hid the data but lied about it.
quite a different thing.
like knowing that your line of childrens wear causes cancer in 100% of the cases but hiding the data and advertising it as "safe for children and free of any carcinogens".
lazs
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I think you guys are missing my point. I dont like the idea of selective shield laws, in those cases the best lobbiest wins.
Here in Michigan we have a shield law for the drug companies, tell me they are not hiding detrimental information under the guise of intellectual property rights.
The auto companies plug in actuarial litigation numbers into the cost of production to detirmine if it is cheaper to make the product safe or pay the claims over the life of the vehicle, and if you notice they are pushing for federal shield laws as well.
Since the bad faith penalties have been abolished against the insurance industry here all auto medical claims by the three largest carriers are denied because the most that the companiy can be mad to pay in litigation is what was due the policyholder anyway, they have plugged in the numbers and know that enough people will just go away to pay the company lawyers plus return a nice additional profit.
If you guys cant see this, I cant help you.
shamus
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Shamus,
Then how in the case of the firearms industry, which is one of the most tightly federal regulated industries in the country, do you keep tort lawyers from bankrupting the industry with massed frivolous lawsuits? They were well on their way right on the backside of the Tobbacco Industry suit. At the speed some states have dragged their feet on this issue or ideologically ignored it, lawyers were having a feild day.
Almost all suits against the firearms industry in the last 30 years have been frivolous lawsuits claiming that because a person shot another person the manufacturer was at fault for the product working as designed. Or firearms constitute a public nusince or hazard because people shoot each other. Or if the gun had not been available Jonny would not have blown his brains out.
Firearms manufacturers do not have a large enough profit margin to defend themselves for decades in litigation and have been setteling out of court driving up the cost of their products. How would you propose making the greedy tort lawyers leave them alone with out this bill?
The current law being passed does not protect a manufacturer from lawsuits if the product malfunctions and kills the weilder or bystanders. It protects the manufactuer if a gangbanger shoots up a neighborhood and kills someones baby two houses away in its crib. Or someones rugrat finds dady's glock and blows away his play mate. Or an unscrupulous dealer or a strawman buyer sells firearms to prohibited persons.
It is not the firearm industries fault one person blows away another how ever they laid hands on the firearm. Just like it is not Ford's fault if you run over your neighbor with your F150 because you caught him in bed with your O'l lady.
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yep shamus... I don't think you understand the bill... I think all manufacturers should be protected like the private plane industry is and now the gun manufacturers and soon.... fast food makers.
It would probly be better if lawyers were fined the cost of the lawsuit for frivolous suits and that everyone was immune from these blatantly bogus suits but.... this is a start.
There are just too many lawyers.... there should be a bounty on em till the herd is thinned.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
yep shamus... I don't think you understand the bill... I think all manufacturers should be protected like the private plane industry is and now the gun manufacturers and soon.... fast food makers.
It would probly be better if lawyers were fined the cost of the lawsuit for frivolous suits and that everyone was immune from these blatantly bogus suits but.... this is a start.
There are just too many lawyers.... there should be a bounty on em till the herd is thinned.
lazs
Now your on to something, best idea I have heard in a while. :aok
Just did an ammo count, got 2000 rds of 7.62 on hand in case of a open season.
;)
dago
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Well your right laz I dont understand the bill, cause I havn't read it yet, and I doubt many if any discussing it here have, but whenever I hear shield law and ex post facto in the same bill I get to wondering.
We will just have to wait and see, I hope it works as advertised, but I have my doubts.
shamus
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I have followed the bill from the start and in no way is it a "sheild law"... It only sheilds the gun manufacturers from totaly frivolous lawsuits... If you can prove they made a defective or dangerous product then you can still sue em...
If you can prove they made the safety out of inferior material and knew it would fail.... sue em... they are not protected.... made the frame from cancer causing radioactive waste and tried to hide it? sue em.
You shot six people with a ruger at 25 yards getting a 4" group.... the people you shot can't sue ruger.
If we had a way to make the lawyers pay for running frivolous lawsuits instead of them being able to drive honest manufacturers out of business... we wouldn't need this kind of common sense legeslation...
If our courts had even an ounce of common sense instead of agendas and greed... we wouldn't have to make common sense bills.
lazs
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No wonder the foolish POLITICIANS from the communist state of Kalifornia support defeating bills like this. They are one of the most litigation oriented states in the Union.
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the real story here is why DIDN'T this make the top news?
answer:
because anyone with half a brain saw it for what is was - bogus
and that the left would look even sillier (if that is possible) trying to demonize the bill
wtg Republicans! and i ain't even a gun owner :)
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and shamus... it does work.. the private plane industry is making a slow comeback from being destroyed by frivolous law suits.
If you ride a bike... they can sue bike manufacturers out of existence.. they don't have to win... just rack up legal expenses and get their hands on the money the companys settle for to stay out of the court system..
it is like hiking and being mauled by a bear and then suing the company that made your hiking shoes.... they won't win but it costs the shoe company a lot of money and they either spend it fighting or settling out of court. either way... they lose and we lose.
lazs
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Ya know laz, in your apperent hysteria here you seem to be forgetting that if a lawsuit is frivolous, it can be dismissed by the judge and the plaintiff lawyer sanctioned. We are seeing more and more of that here. It is interesting but I have yet to meet a defendant in a case that failed to call the case "frivolous".
This is another in a long list of feel good special interest tort reform laws. The pendulm swings back and forth from one extreme of the 70's to the other of now.
The odd thing is that when you take away the rights to seek redress of damages by a person in civil court you can bet that the calls for more government regulation are going to increase.
Your bike analogy looks like the flipside of my auto medical insurance example.
You and I are not going to change each others opinion on this, so take the last shot, I'm out.
shamus
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Are you forgetting that defending yourself from frivilous lawsuits still costs a bunch of money?
Now, imagine defending yourself from oh, say 100 frivioulous lawsuits at a time scattered about in all 50 states.
So, how would you propose an honest and ethical business that has broken no laws, is not guilty of negligence, and isnt a huge multi-national business survive and stay in business while having to deal with that problem?
dago
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Originally posted by Shamus
The odd thing is that when you take away the rights to seek redress of damages by a person in civil court you can bet that the calls for more government regulation are going to increase.
shamus
Havent you been paying attention? The rights of peoples to seek redress from the gun manufacturers has not been removed in any case where the gun manufacturers are accused of negligence or illegal business practices.
They have just been made immune to lawsuits due to misuse of their products by persons independant of the company.
dago
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So what if anti gun groups file thousands of frivolouus lawsuits? That is what is happening and every one of em have to be defended against.
shamus... give one example of a case with merit that this bill might cause to not be4 heard.
Look at the private plane industry... it is finally struggling back after being completely run out of business by the frivolus lawsuit industry.
I don't trust judges to throw out frivolous suits... they didn't do it with the aircraft industry... we gave em their chance and they let everyone down... time to tie their hands..
lazs
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Laz,
The strategy from the late 90's going into the 2000's was exactly that. The idea was to put the firearms indusrty out of business in the U.S. by filing thousands of law suits and bankrupting them.
Remember all the city mayors who filed suits at the same time in 1999-2000? Remember all the gun control lobby groups that filed frend of the court brifs and supplied lawyers and money to help the suits? The NRA took up the fight at the federal level because the lawsuits could be fought and defeted one at a time, but the firearms industry as a whole did not have the resources to last 10 years of non-stop litigation with new suits filed like clockwork in every liberal jurisdiction that would allow the case.
"The gun ban lobby did not want to win the suits". They just wanted to file a non ending stream of suits in every state as many times a month or a year as they could. It did not matter if all the cases were thrown out eventually. It mattered that the industry had to spend it's resources in court and bleed to death.
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They called it "death by a thousand cuts".
They realized they would not be able to accomplish a single killing blow to individual rights, they couldnt kill the 2nd amendment, so they tried to drive gun manufacturers out of business by filing an unending stream of nuisance suits that had to be defended against at significant cost.
Fortunately, they lost, and our Constitution won.
dago
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bustr... yes... I realize that is how it went down.. I was merely saying that the judges let us down... they should have thrown out all those cases and fined the people filing them... they never do tho...
Everyone needs more protection against frivolous lawsuits...
and... varmit season opened up to include lawyers would help a lot too. Don't have to kill em all... just till the herd thins a mite.
lazs
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This is the one thing I like about the Republican Party (and the only thing that stops me from going Non-Commital ---> Democrat)
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Originally posted by Shamus
I think the proceeds collected by the various governments agencies from the tobacco lawsuits should be refunded to the companies.
shamus
Not me, for years people didn't know what they were smoking, they hid what they were putting in the tobacco
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Originally posted by Sixpence
Not me, for years people didn't know what they were smoking, they hid what they were putting in the tobacco
I seem to recall one of those truth.com (or something like that) commercials, where they have a shopping cart full of stuff from the grocery store, and they're challenging people to find the one thing in the cart that doesn't list on the package everything used to make the product.
The item they were looking for was a pack of cigarettes.