JerryM

I've been hearing about a bill in Congress that would give immunity to gun manufacturers and sellers from any lawsuit filed by a victim of firearms, provided that the production and sale of said firearms followed proper legal procedures. One the one hand, I don't like the idea of special protection for the gun industry that other businesses don't also receive. But on the other hand, I don't think that personal injury suits should be used as a back door means of gun control. I don't own a gun, and I do think there are too many guns out there in the wrong hands. But gun control should come about through the legislative process. There seems to be a district trend over the last 25 years or so to use the tort system as a way to affect social change. Does this make our society safer, or just overly regulated and paying vastly more for insurance?

Joe6Pack

I would say over regulation in regards to your post.
For example, if I used a kitchen knife to off somebody should the victims be able to sue the manufacturer? Go to the hardware store and look at all the warning lables on a common ladder.pretty much every warning came as a result of a lawsuit.
I would advocate a little more commoc sense gun control over lawsuits anyday.

xorbie

The way I see it, anybody who sues McDonalds for getting fat, or sues them for their coffee being hot, or sues a peanut butter company because they have allergies to peanuts and the label didn't say "beware: product contains peanuts" or any such asburd lawsuit should have their right to vote stripped.

Now I don't know if the OP was meant to send the thread in this direction, or to talk more about gun control specifically. With regards to the the latter topic, I am against any more gun control than we already have. Unless the entire planet could somehow stop producing guns alltogether, I think that criminals will get guns. To make it easier for a criminal to illegaly purchase a gun than for the average Joe Smith to get one is very poor policy in my books. This is a rather simplified version of the argument, but I think it is not exactly what the OP asked for anyway.

Autonemesis

Why shouldn't it? Personal injury lawsuits precisely address the problems that gun ownership poses to society: people get injured. Sounds efficient to me.

The SwampThing

I totally agree. But i woudn�t go so far as to stripp them of their voting rights...
A good old fashioned spanking would do just fine.
The first time i heard about the McDonalds lawsuit, i said to myself "they have to be kidding"!
Who the hell sues a food company because the food made him fat???
But then it hitted me. The US brought it on themselfs. Sueing someone�s ass off has become a current practice, almost a fashion statement!
People are sued because their dog pissed on the neighbours yard, sued because they drink whiskey and got drunk, any cockamamy thing you can think of!!!
Those who sow winds, are bound to reap storms!
They opened Pandora�s box, and now they can�t close it.
It�s poetic justice, in its finnest form.

Loren Pechtel

I don't like the law because it's not broad enough.

Legal products that function as they are supposed to and do not involve deception in their sale should not be a liability target, period.

Guns are merely one example. Tobacco should be a target but only because they kept suppressing the evidence of the addictiveness of their product.

JerryM

I totally agree with you. In my OP I was just citing the gun question as an example. I'm really more concerned with the larger issue of using the tort process for social engineering. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that it's primarily judges that have allowed all manner of suits with expanded theories of liability to proceed to trial. And higher courts don't seem as willing to dismiss some of these far out cases as in the past. I don't see how excessive litigation improves society. And it's very costly for everyone.

Craig

Exacty. If they are sold legally, then it's the (gasp) responsiblity of the guy that committed the crime (and/or the guy that enabled him to do so).

These lawsuits are no different than an end run around abortion rights, or gay rights, etc. Someone with an agenda can't win in the legislature so they try to sue something out of existence.

Bookwyrm

While I agree with the general thrust of this statement, I'd like to point out that the McDonald's coffee lawsuit was actually a fairly reasonable case, or at least more reasonable than it is usually portrayed as being. Despite the way it was portrayed in the media and the way it is remembered by most people, McDonald's didn't lose the suit merely because the woman spilled hot coffee on herself; it lost the suit because at that time McDonald's served its coffee at an unreasonably high temperature. Mcdonald's coffee was served at 180 to 190 degrees fahrenheit, whereas coffee served at other eating establishments was served substantially cooler, and coffee brewed at home is generally served between 135 and 140 degrees, food served at any temperature above this constitutes a burn hazard. The plaintiff suffered third degree burns as a result of her accident and had to spend eight days in the hospital and undergo skin grafting, whereas coffee at a more reasonable temperature would have resulted in burns of a much less serious nature.