Reply #152: You mean toward next to no gun crime? [View All]

[MrBenchley]

"Gun mfgers shouldn't be held liable for how their product is used"
Sez you.

"33 cities and counties have filed suit against the gun industry for wrongful conduct that harmed citizens and resulted in large financial expenses to taxpayers. The lawsuits are a response to the terrible effect that gun violence has had on these cities and counties. In addition to the severe personal harm suffered by shooting victims and their families, gun violence has substantial economic costs. For example, it costs more than $14,000 to treat each child wounded by gunfire - enough to pay for a full year at a private college. The average cost of a gun-related crime may be as high as $268,000. The American College of Physicians estimates that, in the aggregate, the direct cost of firearms injuries is more than $4 billion per year, with $19 billion in additional harm such as lost potential earnings. Local governments pay millions of extra dollars for items like medical care, emergency services, police protection, courts, prisons, and school security because of wrongful conduct by the gun industry that resulted in injury and death.
Of the 33 government entities that have sued the gun industry so far, 18 have won favorable rulings on the legal merits of their claims and continue to move ahead through the courts, five have not yet had a decision on a motion to dismiss, and four have had their claims dismissed but are challenging those rulings in appeals. Only seven cases have ended without success. Numerous private cases have succeeded in court.
Robert Ricker, who worked for decades within the gun industry as both an NRA lawyer and the head of the major handgun manufacturers' association, has filed a sworn affidavit on behalf of the California cities that have sued the gun industry, laying out a pattern of negligent and irresponsible conduct by the industry. Ricker states that the gun industry has long known that corrupt gun dealers have fueled the illegal market by providing guns to gun traffickers who were illegally reselling them on the street to criminals and that the gun industry deliberately avoided doing anything that would have stopped such conduct. Gun industry lawyers actively prevented discussion of steps the gun industry could take to prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals. Furthermore, the NRA and the gun industry went to great lengths to silence anyone within the gun industry who urged a more responsible approach to keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. The industry's conduct resulted in a surge of gun sales - unfortunately many of those sales were to the criminal market."

http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/issues/?page=immun_state