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-Land of the Free
The Moral Work of Gun Control
2015-01-02
A Canadian leftist writer for the New Yorker describes the lawsuit against gun makers, likening it to Martin Luther's 95 Theses, nailed to a church door.
The news that the parents of the children massacred two years ago in Sandy Hook, near Newtown, Connecticut, by a young man with a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, were undertaking a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer was at once encouraging and terribly discouraging. The encouraging part is that those parents, suffering from a grief that those of us who are only witnesses to it can barely begin to comprehend, haven’t, despite the failure to reinstate assault-weapons bans and stop the next massacre, given way to despair. Like Richard Martinez, after his son was murdered by a weapon that should never have been in the hands of a lunatic, or anyone else, for that matter, they’re allowing themselves to be angry, and then turning their anger into action: they’re naming the business that helped kill their children and asking a court to hold that business responsible.
I don't see a tort, but then this is modern American jurisprudence, which uses conjured up theories such as "Emerging Awareness" to justify all manner of insanity. Frankly, using the legal system to redress the grievance of murder is insanity by definition.
The filed complaint—the numbered paragraphs give it an oddly religious feeling, like theses nailed to a church door—is worth reading in full, however painful that might be, not only because of the unbelievable suffering and cruelty it details on that terrible morning but also because it offers, in neatly logical fashion, an indisputable argument: the gun manufacturer is guilty of having sold a weapon whose only purpose was killing a lot of people in a very short time. Despite the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives having previously declared that such weapons “serve a function in crime and combat, but serve no sporting purpose,” Bushmaster sold it anyway—and precisely on the grounds that it could kill many people, quickly. “Forces of opposition bow down. You are single handedly outnumbered,” the advertising copy read.
The rifle used in the Newtown massacre was sold to a woman who was murdered by the shooter. Unlikely Bushmaster sold it for that purpose, and it would be hard to prove even negligence on the part of the Bushmaster.
Posted by:badanov

#17  I guess the summation of this article can be liberalism is a mental defect.
The FBI and CDC have concluded from multiple studies (that were funded to prove the opposite) that when more people are armed crime goes down. I am a Benefactor Life Member of the NRA. I am constantly asked by non-shooters for NRA stickers to put on their cars and home. Thousands of interviews with criminals in prison have proven when a criminal sees an NRA sticker or any other indication the occupant is armed they go somewhere else where the risk of being shot is lower.
Posted by: David169   2015-01-02 18:04  

#16  Writers like this should be subject to prison time for deliberately and purposely misleading people.
Posted by: OldSpook   2015-01-02 15:44  

#15  Morality is legalese for cashing in.
Posted by: regular joe   2015-01-02 15:21  

#14  Pappy wins the thread! :-D
Posted by: Barbara   2015-01-02 14:55  

#13  "Trudeau"?
Posted by: Pappy   2015-01-02 14:39  

#12  What's Canadian for putz?
Posted by: Glith Ebboluper1488   2015-01-02 13:35  

#11  get back to me when the state disarms first.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2015-01-02 12:43  

#10  Yes, AlmostAnonymous. I remind having heard of a shooting spree in a school stopped because a teacher confronted the attacker with his gun. Attacker immediately surrended. The cops came well later.
Posted by: JFM   2015-01-02 11:54  

#9  Hmmm??? And the people responsible for disarming civilians and creating "Gun Free" zones aren't responsible for the high number of deaths in those said zones? Interesting!
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839   2015-01-02 11:15  

#8  Well said JFM.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2015-01-02 10:32  

#7  JFM, that was Ford with the Pinto runabout/sedan gas tank.
figures at the time showed a per unit savings of under $5.00 (IIRC) by not making the tank more crashworthy.
Tanks would rupture due to being impaled on a bolt in the rear-end housing area. Some reports said that simply turning the bolt around would have prevented many of the explosions.
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2015-01-02 10:21  

#6  Adam Gopnik completely ignores the moral argument, statistics or anecdotal information in favor of firearms. He must think his 1st Amendment right will be guaranteed by the good will and kindness of men.
Posted by: JohnQC   2015-01-02 09:14  

#5   legislative prophylactics that prevent gunmakers, almost uniquely among American manufacturers, from ever being held responsible for the deaths that their products cause

Lie. Gun manufacturers don't benefirt from any special privilege. Electrical companies aren't held responsible for electrocutions: they delivered perfectly good electricity: customer carelessness or defective home installations aren't their responsibility. They are responsible if a defective power line they maintain causes a fire.

Car manufacturers are not held responsible for people overrun by cars. But GM or Ford (don(t remember) got a four billion fine for as a cost saving measure deliberately having designed a gas tank who punctured easily thus resulting into a number of cars catching fire after an accident and people getting killed.

And gun manufacturers get exactly the same treatment: they are held responsible for deaths caused by defective products like a gun exploding and killing its user, not through the normal use of the weapon.

Now let's talk about some people who should get multi-million dollar fines and even jail: like journalists, "intellectuals" and "community organizers" who dtir racial tensions and cause cops to be killed or shops set afire, who have forced an inocent persons (Zimmerman) to hide after falsely depeciting an accident as a racist crime, like falmsely accusing a group of people from rape. Let's begin by you Mr activist, when people are killed or raped because the good guys were unable to oppose the bad ones.
Posted by: JFM   2015-01-02 09:06  

#4  Why is the FBI misleading the public about active shooters ?
Posted by: Besoeker   2015-01-02 07:55  

#3  He used handguns not a rifle.
Posted by: BrerRabbit   2015-01-02 07:23  

#2  The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow
the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all
conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms
have prepared their own downfall by so doing.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2015-01-02 03:12  

#1  These people think they have a moral right to infringe on Your rights.
The ultimate do-gooders are the ultimate intolerant goons that complicate life without your consent for their corrupt failed concepts.

Willfully ignorant and even more arrogant, they have no place running Civilized Society.
Ergo, they must destroy it.
Posted by: newc   2015-01-02 01:08  

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