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Showing Original Post only (View all)It's Time to End Legal Immunity for the Gun Industry - Where Do Progressives Stand? [View all]
Last edited Mon Feb 19, 2018, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)
We need to know where our electeds stand. Do they stand with gun manufacturers? Or, will they end the immunity for gun manufacturers?
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/42522-it-s-time-to-end-legal-immunity-for-the-gun-industry
In November 1998, the largest tobacco manufacturers in the country entered into a "master settlement agreement" with the attorneys general of 46 states in order to settle public health lawsuits that threatened to beggar the industry. The attorneys general had sued on the grounds that they had incurred immense Medicaid costs as the result of the tobacco industry's negligent marketing practices, causing millions of people to get hooked on cigarettes and suffering health effects that burdened the state health systems.
That same month, the City of Chicago filed a lawsuit against 22 gun manufacturers and sellers of guns in the Chicago suburbs and surrounding areas for causing a "public nuisance" in supplying and selling guns around the City at a level well above what the lawful gun market could support. The City's theory of the case was that the manufacturers and sellers must have known that the guns would end up on the illicit secondary market -- that is, on the streets of Chicago, where violence was continuing at high rates.
The case wended its way through the court system for six years, finally being dismissed by the Illinois Supreme Court in November 2004. Chicago's suit was one of several that had been filed along similar lines -- all inspired by the success of the public suits against the tobacco companies. Most of these suits suffered similar ends by 2005 -- when Congress passed the Protecting Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) which granted the gun industry immunity from civil liability for the unlawful use of guns except in narrow circumstances.
The PLCAA effectively exempted this one industry from the type of product liability and nuisance litigation that just about every other industry has to protect itself against: liability for the foreseeable misuse of their products. This immunity acted as a second shield for gun manufacturers and sellers, who already enjoy some level of protection from product liability suits because they traffic in "inherently dangerous" products, which users know are dangerous. Therefore, users themselves assume a significant level of risk for these products' use.
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It's Time to End Legal Immunity for the Gun Industry - Where Do Progressives Stand? [View all]
TomCADem
Feb 2018
OP
Reuters - Las Vegas shooting victims file lawsuit against bump stock makers - Cowards?
TomCADem
Feb 2018
#2
Bernie Sanders On AR-15s: Theyre Not For Hunting. Theyre For Killing Human Beings
TomCADem
Feb 2018
#4
Do you have a source for the auto company being sued for not providing safety devices?
TCJ70
Feb 2018
#84
Bernie voted FOR the PLCAA, which exempted the gun industry from civil liability laws
pnwmom
Feb 2018
#15
Why shouldnt the gun industry be liable for damage done by its products, just like anybody else?
TomCADem
Feb 2018
#7
Do you have examples of other industries being held responsible in the way youre suggesting?
TCJ70
Feb 2018
#10
Yes. If I decide to take out a side walk full of people with my Nissan Rogue...
phleshdef
Feb 2018
#78
Pretty sure that you're reaching, but I think we'll have to agree to disagree.
Crunchy Frog
Feb 2018
#68
So knife makers should be sued for the 1,500+ who get stabbed to death every year?
EX500rider
Feb 2018
#12
They aren't getting swamped with junk lawsuits in a backdoor attempt to bankrupt them like gun manuf
EX500rider
Feb 2018
#20
All manufacturers and sellers should be subject to the same liability standards.
pnwmom
Feb 2018
#19
I don't want them to have any protection. They are careless about what they make and the danger it
Demsrule86
Feb 2018
#29
Same was true of tobacco....They need to be responsible for the deaths they cause.
Demsrule86
Feb 2018
#43
No. That is not where it ends...because if Tide had made their product more deadly if it was misused
Demsrule86
Feb 2018
#80
Not everyone who smokes gets cancer first of all and guns are an evil in our society...the murder
Demsrule86
Feb 2018
#110
There is no way to know that but putting guns in the hands of murderous people is just plain stupid.
Demsrule86
Feb 2018
#112
Tobacco companies have generally NOT been held responsible for the deaths they cause.
Jim Lane
Feb 2018
#97
But they do need it because they were getting junk lawsuits in a attempt to bankrupt them.
EX500rider
Feb 2018
#33
Except the ability to use a gun for violence is at least partially within their control
mythology
Feb 2018
#81
You want any"safety"features they will have to be made into laws/regs, just like the auto industry.
EX500rider
Feb 2018
#87
They could but probably a job for the BATF...they just need to make them illegal.
EX500rider
Feb 2018
#102
I want every gun store bankrupted...never was a gun grabber but iI have changed my mind...sick of
Demsrule86
Feb 2018
#32
Yes, if the goal of anti-medicine groups lawsuits was to bankrupt the Rx company
aikoaiko
Feb 2018
#53
This Immunity is Nothing Short of an Outrage--Every Pol Who Voted For It Needs to Be Voted Out
dlk
Feb 2018
#34
Unless defective, I am not for suing gun companies. Just like I am not for.....
USALiberal
Feb 2018
#61
I stand with the PLCAA. Sorry. (As well as the aircraft manufacturers and vaccine makers.)
X_Digger
Feb 2018
#62
Just out of curiosity, what if somebody uses a Rock Island Arsenal gun in a crime?
Pope George Ringo II
Feb 2018
#77
Gun companies should be held liable for defective products like every other manufacturer.
Vinca
Feb 2018
#79
I think there's room to prosecute for certain irresponsible marketing, and irresponsible sales.
AtheistCrusader
Feb 2018
#98