General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How Bernie Sanders Helped Derail a Promising Legal Fight Against Gun Violence [View all]DanTex
(20,709 posts)Before it was that civil lawsuits that had regulatory implications were invalid. Now it's that only certain specific product liability lawsuits should be allowed. And, of course, since that doesn't apply to civil environmental lawsuits, you'll have to change your story again for that.
And, once again, if this were a general principle, that civil courts can only be used for narrowly defined product liability, and not for broader harms inflicted on society by business practices, then that should be codified into law, rather than a special loophole for a single industry with powerful lobbyists. But, of course, that's a horrible principle, which is why it isn't.
Let all corporations play by the same civil litigation rules. And let the courts decide. If a corporation, be it automobile, chemical, petroleum, gun, whatever, thinks that lawsuits against them don't have merit, they have every opportunity to argue that in court.
Actually, the answers to the first two questions are "yes", and the third is irrelevant to civil litigation. Though gun companies are certainly welcome to use their second amendment fetishization in a court of law and see of they can convince a jury that it absolves them of the harm they cause and profit from.
Actually, he was involved in settling the S&W lawsuit. But if he hadn't been involved, than the statements he made to the public, as a politician, are even more irrelevant. I happen to agree with Cuomo that local authorities who were being harmed by crime-promoting practices of the gun industry were right to seek redress in civil court. I'm sure you disagree. People can say whatever they want. Now, if gun companies thought they couldn't get a fair trial because of the things that some politician said, they certainly had the right to plead that argument in front of a court.