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New York Times - login required, so reproducing some of it here...
A spate of government litigation against the nation's gun companies has been stifled in 30 states, which have passed laws granting the industry immunity from civil lawsuits.
Those laws have all been enacted since 1998, when New Orleans became the first of almost three dozen cities and counties to file suits against gun manufacturers and dealers, accusing them of being public nuisances and seeking huge damage awards in a campaign similar to that waged against the tobacco industry...
...The gun companies have won the aid of state legislatures to turn back the legal assault. Already, civil suits against the industry by New Orleans and Atlanta have been dismissed by state courts in Louisiana and Georgia because of the grants of immunity, even though the grants were passed after the suits were filed...
...A striking exception to the trend is the California State Legislature, which passed a bill this week repealing a law that gave the gun industry immunity...
Lawyers are saying that there is evidence that "the gun industry maintains a distribution system that allows a large number of guns to fall into the hands of criminals and juveniles" and "failed to act on warnings by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that certain distributors were responsible for selling large numbers of guns that ended up with criminals". These claims are obviously disputed.
However, granting immunity from prosecution to certain people by industry indicates, at best, that legislators have no confidence in the court system to reject these suits if false (but aren't concerned about that when it concerns anyone else) - and at worst that they know there is a problem and are covering up. Either way, I can see no justification for it at all. At best favouritism, at worst corruption? Not too far apart.
Note that this is talking about cities and counties filing suits against manufacturers - I don't know what the status of (groups of) private individuals suing gun manufacturers is. Also, the ban seems to be on civil suits, so I suppose you could try criminal prosecution, as far as I understand it, but that's going to be practically impossible to prove when you're aiming at a large corporation with distributed blame.
I really don't want to get into any sort of gun control debate here, that really isn't the issue. The issue is that state legislature appears to be favouring one group over another for political reasons. Except, apparently, in California. |
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