Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Supreme Court and Gun Laws

McQ at QandO is discussing recent Supreme Court decisions. The case I want to draw attention to is the refusal to dismiss a case holding a set of gun manufacturers liable for the shooting death of a Postal Service letter carrier. McQ points out, look at the chain of custody of the gun:
...the gun Furrow used to kill Ileto was originally sold to the police department in Cosmopolis, Wash. ... According to court records, the department sold the weapon to a gun shop in exchange for a different model. The shop sold it to a gun collector who is alleged to have sold it to Furrow, an ex-convict prohibited from purchasing weapons, at a gun show in Spokane, Wash.
So the manufacturers great crime is selling firearms to the police.

What is so annoying about this is that there have been a slew of these cases in the past decade. It is a vain attempt to sue the firearms industry into submission. Vain because most of these cases are dismissed and the rest go for the gun company at trial. To date they have won one case out of at least a hundred. So looks like this one goes to trial, where the gun companies will almost certainly win.

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