Diatribes from the Echo Chamber [View all]

Once again, the resident gun-hater there has published a screed concerning firearms manufacturers and the supposed inability to sue them. In one of his posts, he states (in response to a reply from another DU poster concerning the sanity of suing manufacturers when their product is not malfunctioning, using auto manufacturers as an example):

"The fact is, that automobile manufacturers CAN be sued if their product plays a part in injury or death. The very fact that they can be sued, and that they are subject to regulated safety standards, keeps the auto makers honest -- unlike the right-wing gun lobby and the manufacturers of lethal weapons they represent. The absence of both litigation and product safety rules for firearms is a potentially dangerous combination for the public’s health."

(BTW, the other poster was banned for invading their sanctum sanctorum and disagreeing with their POV, and I was banned for telling the poster they would be banned for their actions. I am devastated...)

Where do I start? How about here. Yes, auto manufacturers can be sued for just about anything, whether or not their product is defective - as can most manufacturers:
http://www.businessinsurance.org/10-ridiculously-frivolous-lawsuits-against-big-businesses/

The fact that most of these lawsuits are reversed on appeal don't make them any cheaper for the business in question.

The law Billy boy is railing against was put in place to prevent those who hate guns from, in essence, using the legal system as a backdoor means of achieving their final end of gun-control for all by bankrupting companies through the filing of thousands of frivolous lawsuits. These lawsuits attempted to bypass the normal product liability laws:
http://injury.findlaw.com/product-liability/what-is-product-liability.html

by holding firearms manufacturers strictly liable for their products (you can be held liable for any harm resulting from certain activities without any fault of your own):
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/strict-liability.html

Their thought process was that fighting these lawsuits would cost so much, that the manufacturers would be driven out of business. It didn't matter that all of their lawsuits had been unsuccessful, even under the doctrine of strict liability, because they knew all they needed was one win from a sympathetic jury to possibly cause a shutdown of the entire consumer firearms industry. They were in the process of attempting to do exactly that when this law was passed, negating their efforts. The final result was to prevent firearms manufacturers from being held strictly liable for use of their products. They are still liable under other circumstances:
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/products-liability-firearms-and-explosives.html

http://injury.findlaw.com/product-liability/product-liability-and-guns.html

Now, I have a question for Bill and his acolytes - can you name just one lawsuit against an auto manufacturer, under circumstances where their product did not malfunction (even under strict liability rules), that ultimately was decided in favor of the plaintiff and not the manufacturer? In other words, under the same circumstances that you would have firearms manufacturers be held liable?

Suing a firearms manufacturer for a properly working product does not fall under any of the 3 normal product defect types, except possibly marketing defects. That is negated by the copious warnings present in every firearms manual I have read over the past 40 years. However, the haters have tried to create from whole cloth product defects that are unique to firearms by claiming that they are inherently defective due to the fact that they can be used to kill other people. That would be like claiming that archery equipment, knives, and clubs are all defective because they also can be used to kill. It doesn't matter that firearms have many legal, non-lethal uses - in the mind of the hater, they are dangerous beyond belief and should be taken away from the average citizen in order to protect them.

Make no mistake - if it wasn't for the second amendment, their aim would already have been achieved. Thankfully, the founders knew the danger of a government that could disarm its citizens, and took steps to prevent that from ever occurring.