Own a Assault Weapon? soon the Sheriff will be at your home

[broncofan]

Goes with last post.

I found this quote about the Navegar decision, "The Court held that the California statute precluded any claim for negligence or strict liability against a gun manufacturer involving the risks versus the benefits of a firearm." Section 1714.4 of the California Civil Code which was passed to bar application of common law principles to gun manufacturers.

More immunity. Yes, passed in a liberal state, but why should such a law be passed only as a shield for manufacturers of guns? You make just about any other product, you are subject to the common law.

[broncofan]

Brickcitybrother,
since you said you're leaving the debate, I wanted to say that although I'm pretty sure you're wrong about me using your name excessively (I went back and looked) you made some very good arguments.

I did use a few unnecessary insults. You are certainly not braindead, which your last post clearly shows. In fact I agree with most of your policy prescriptions, even if I chose to focus on the statistics, which I don't think helped your argument as much as your subsequent posts. So, I'm sorry I insulted you.

If you have not studied the law, you did an excellent job assimilating a lot of legal information. My view is not really that lawsuits make everyone so much safer, but that in the absence of really good regulation from agencies whose expertise protects the public, there should be other avenues.

In fact, if An8150 is here he might be able to vouch for this position. I am in favor of stringent regulation, but you cannot have no regulation and no market accountability. It is a Libertarian argument (though I am not a Libertarian), that we give people choices to do what they want but when those choices impose costs on others we make them provide some form of compensation. In that way, if the other, more hands-on regulatory mechanisms are not available because they're deemed to provide too much of a threat to the public's liberties, then manufacturers know they have to exercise caution. Again, the changes are incremental, and the lawsuits have theoretical hurdles to overcome. I just don't believe we can continue without market regulation or agency regulation.

If I had to choose between the two, I would assume your recommendations (re registration etc) would be more effective. I don't think we have to choose and further, in the absence of what you recommend, let the deep pockets make profits but also try to act responsibly. The point is that even the potential of accountability provides a check on a company's ability to act with impunity and would rein in excesses; with immunity that cannot happen. As you say, there are already a number of theoretical challenges to successful suit as it is.