Cynical Nation

It's another issue on which the innately Liberal Bloomberg is a complete idiot.

Gun control is an utter failure.

It DOES NOTHING to reduce the amount of "illegal guns" (there's actually no such a thing), as it actually increases the demand for black market weapons, while primarily impacting those law abiding citizens who comply with the law as a normal course of their actions.

Proof that NYC's "gun control laws" are primarily a "war on the innate right we all have to self-defense" is the fact that the only actual "gun cases" you see brought to trial are those against average citizens, who use an unregistered weapon to defend themselves. Ron Dixon, a Navy vet, was charged with shooting an intruder who'd broke into his Brooklyn home and was approaching Dixon's daughter's room, countless store owners have been charged with weapons violations for merely defending their stores from predatory thugs.

As Yale University Research Fellow, John Lott says, "More guns = Less Crime." For instance, if just one other passenger on that LIRR train had been armed, Colin Ferguson would not have been able to inflict all that carnage that day.

Bloomberg and the rest of the anti-gun nuts are imbeciles. IN fact, the reverse, demanding that all citizens be armed, would probably be a greater deterrant against crime.

"As to the gun torts, I thought the Senate had voted to "bulletproof the gun industry from such judgments;

"WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Friday to shield firearms manufacturers, dealers and importers from lawsuits brought by victims of gun crimes, a measure opponents said had been ordered up by the gun lobby.

"The 65-31 vote passed a bill that supporters said protects the industry from financial disaster and bankruptcy caused by damage lawsuits."

"This bill says go after the criminal, don't go after the law-abiding gun manufacturer or the law-abiding gun seller," said bill sponsor Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho."

http://www.atsnn.com/story/158994.html

65 - 31!?

Any of the 31 members who voted against this, DO NOT belong in Congress. Either you don't understand the Constitution, which makes violent self-defense into an inalienable right, or you simply don't support the document you swore to uphold, if you could vote against this Bill.

Either way, EVERY one of those 31 should be voted out of office and replaced with people who cherish the sacred, exciting and often fun-filled right to violent self-defense.

You know, you can mess with me on a lot of things, but you may not mess with me on my right to owna firearm.

Suing manufacturers of firearms is nothing but a low trick, and an unecessary tactic. Address poverty before addressing the availability of guns.

The problem isn't "gun violence" it's violence itself and NO LAWS will ever put an end to that.

Violence is not caused, or even much exacerbated by poverty, as most violence is NOT conducted by people we'd consider "poor," and many of the victims ARE indeed themselves "poor."

Far MORE frequent than the "poor" thug who shoots a store owner in a botched hold-up, is the little child killed in the crossfire of a drug gang's turf battle. The children victimized ARE often "poor," but those drug gangs are generally guys raking in five figures a week, plying their trade on those streets.

Moreover, by far most violence stems from what are called "crimes of passion," spouses killing one another, other family members engaged in disputes, business arrangements gone wrong etc....and gun laws do NOTHING to address the causes of that.

Sans guns, the husband intent on murdering his wife would simply use a hammer (a gun's actually a lot more merciful in that case), the mugger to knives, etc. In short a lack of guns does not result in any lack of violence, as the intent of those who wish to do harm are not changed or abridged in any way.

In the hands of the cruel, any and everything becomes a weapon.

The hysteria around guns only highlights the inability of most people to even explain, let alone deal with the vicissitudes of the human heart.

Guns are a tool, like chain saws and air-hammers. They're potentially dangerous tools, like virtually ALL tools are.

Gun control is NOT violence control and gun control laws only disarm those who would obey the law in the first place (law-abiding citizens) and that only aids and abets the thugs, who aren't going to obey ANY laws, not even the strictures against cold-blooded murder, as it leaves the homeowners and shopkeepers functionally defenseless.

The issue isn't gun control, or even frivolous lawsuits, it's about the innate, God-given right that each and every one of us has to defend our persons and our property with violence, when necessary.

The issue isn't the misuse of a product, in this case guns. It's prefectly clear that you can't sue Ford if someone has an accident that causes a death any more than you can sue S&W if someone holds up a bank.

What you're missing, is the fact that gun manufacturers have been accused of encougaging the illigal sale of their products. Products that, as a result of these sales, ends up in the hands of criminals.

If true, then it's equally clear there is a basis to sue.

Manufacturers have no responsibility to to keep their products out of young people's hands, Bob.

Gun manufacturers don't SELL their wares directly to the public, they sell them to gun dealers and gun dealers aren't allowed to market that product on TV or radio. Now if they did market direct to public and used, say a "Joe Camel" approach to their marketing, I might well agree, but they don't.

The overwhelming bulk of "illegal guns" (a misnomer) are stolen from police impounds, Military depots, as well as gun shop break-ins, etc.

Gun makers have no more "responsibility" for keeping their product out of "the wrong hands" (ie. juveniles) than does Ford with its cars, or Toro with its power lawn equipment.

Personally, I find that all the prevailing evidence goes the other way. Kennesaw, Georgia, which bills itself, "America's Safest City" requires all its citizens to own guns.

How do we know that Kennesaw, Georgia really is America's "safest city?"

What city would bill itself as that, if it were not?

Besides, violent crime stats do bear that out, if that's all that important.

When someone gets drunk and plows their Buick head-on into someone else's car, I can understand the victim's misguided desire to sue "EVERYONE," but only one person is responsible in any meaningful way for that accident and only that person should be exposed to a tort - the drunken driver.

Not the auto maker.

Not the auto dealership.

Not the bar that served up the booze.

Not the booze maker.

Now I agree, we've allowed litigation to get out of control in this country and we badly need to rein it in. Society needs relief from such unwanted torts, far more than do a few pitiable victims need compensation from parties not directly responsible for the damages suffered.

A most basic kind of tort reform would simply prohibit any tort be brought against any party not DIRECTLY involved in the damages incurred.

I'm with Tami on this.

Oh, and so this is where JMK hangs out these days. Hi JMK...

JMK, if Anheuser-Busch encougaged the sale of their products to minors and as a result someone was injured, could they be sued?

Hi Alpha!

I'm glad you're around and well.

I too agree with OTTami, at least as to the lunacy of the lawsuits against gun manufacturers. We may disagree on the view that poverty causes or exacerbates violence. I'm convinced that it generally does not, though many others disagree.

Bob, "IF" gun makers were marketing their product to children you might be able to make such a case, the way it was made against "Joe Camel." Hell, even Anheuser-Busch markets its products with many "youth oriented" ads.

But that has NOT been the case, so far as I can see.

Gun makers don't advertise in the MSM, on radio or on TV.

I'd consider all trade and gun magazines "adult oriented publications." I don't believe that children are lured into buying guns via ads in American Hunter, American Rifleman, or Field & Stream.

NOT believable.

Thankfully we DO have a popular culture that rightly, in my view, glorifies the gun. It should be up to each parent to take the mystery out of guns that TV Shows & movies have put in.

The so-called "illegal gun problem," is not driven by juveniles buying guns, but thugs lloking for the "tools of their trade" (guns, etc) off the black market out on the street.

That black market in guns is overwhelmingly fueled by guns that are stolen or smuggled away from police impounds, military depots, robberies of gun shops, private collectors, etc and the demand for it is overwhelmingly fueled by thugs looking for unregistered arms in order to ply their chosen trade, not by juveniles lured by the "gun mystique."

JMK, don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people owning guns. Every law abiding American should have the right to own a gun.

If however, gun manufacturers encourage illegal sale and distribution of guns to non-law abiding Americans, I think that is a problem. And isn't that the issue here?

Actually I think ownership of guns should be treated like ownership of cars; a license to use one and registration and insurance to own one.

"If however, gun manufacturers encourage illegal sale and distribution of guns to non-law abiding Americans, I think that is a problem. And isn't that the issue here?" (Bob)

Yes, I agree that THAT would certainly be THE issue, Bob.

It's just that I just don't see where gun makers themselves are "encouraging the sale of guns to either minors, or people with criminal records." At least I've sen no evidence of that and no documentation of that sort of thing.

If EITHER gun makers or gun retailers were deliberately marketing firearms to either minors or people with criminal records, etc, yes that would not only be tort actionable, in my view, but would itelf probably rise to the level of a criminal enterprise.

But like I said, I've never seen any hard evidence of that charge.

If there is such evidence it deserves to be heard in a court and adjudicated. I'd support such a hearing, so long as such evidence could be brought to bear. However, I wouldn't consider conjecture alone as evidence.

If there is such evidence it deserves to be heard in a court...

Then we agree.

Yes, only I've yet to see any such evidence. If it exists, it would certainly seem certainly actionable.

One bit of clarification, I said, "If EITHER gun makers or gun retailers were deliberately marketing firearms to either minors or people with criminal records, etc, yes that would not only be tort actionable, in my view, but would itelf probably rise to the level of a criminal enterprise..." - ON the PART of the PARTY who did THAT.

In other words, if gun retailers marketed guns to inappropriate groups THAY'D be guilty, if gun makers did, then they would as well, but if only the gun dealers, retailers marketed guns to inappropriate groups they alone should be held accountable, in my view.

You're right, I agree...

Then I'm happy to be in agreement.