My friendly debate at PointOfLaw.com with Prof. Michael Krauss of George Mason University on federalism and the gun pre-emption bill has now gone through two rounds and has attracted notice from Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review Online and from Jacob Sullum and Nick Gillespie at Reason “Hit and Run”. Check it out and you’ll learn more about the federal Commerce Clause, states’ tendency to engage in “beggar-your-neighbor” strategies on product liability, and the question of whether the failure of most of the municipal gun suits means we can relax about a threat to Second Amendment liberties.
Posts Tagged ‘guns’
Guns and federalism dialogue begins
My friendly argument with Michael Krauss over federalism and gun litigation (he thinks the Constitution bars national pre-emption, I don’t) just began at PointOfLaw.com. I’ve just posted my initial volley, and Michael tells me he’ll have a response ready to post this morning. We’ll be going through Thursday or Friday, exploring different aspects of the issue. Stop by and, if the issue interests you, check in often for updates.
Judge Weinstein shepherds gun lawsuit
As if to confirm this website’s worst fears (Mar. 31, 2003 and Mar. 24, 2003), federal Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York is permitting the City of New York to proceed with a “public nuisance” suit against the gun industry. If that theory sounds eerily familiar, it is because a Manhattan appellate state court threw out an essentially identical public nuisance lawsuit by the state of New York against the gun industry in the Sturm, Ruger case, noting that New York state law did not countenance such attenuated theories of liability (Jun. 30 and Jul. 4). The district court opinion is a marvelous example of how an unprecedented theory of liability lifts itself up by the bootstraps: the decision relies heavily on Judge Weinstein’s previous opinions and the Ninth Circuit’s unreasoned Ileto v. Glock decision (Dec. 3 and Nov. 20); while claiming that Sturm, Ruger supports it, the decision ignores language (and related precedent) in that opinion that would preclude the City’s theory of liability. (Tom Perotta, “Federal Judge Keeps New York City’s Gun Suit Alive”, New York Law Journal, Apr. 13; City of New York v. Beretta opinion).
Update: Clayton Cramer comments.
Senate refuses to block gun suits
The House-passed bill (see Feb. 25) that would have protected firearms makers from being held liable for criminals’ misuse of guns died last week in the Senate, although endorsed by a substantial majority of members of that body. Why? Well, it seems quite a few Senators had to pretend to like the bill, given its popularity with the voters back home, but in fact were happy to see poison pill amendments attached to it that they knew would lead to its demise. (Edward Epstein, “Gun-liability bill dies in Senate”, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 3). Editorial writers of leading newspapers opposed the lawsuit restrictions with sniffish near-unanimity; it’s not as if George Soros were funding a litigation campaign that placed them at risk of bankruptcy, after all. Gun-bias-watcher Alphecca (Mar. 8) finds a few balanced press accounts of the week’s doings, but not many. More: another helping from Alphecca. And the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action ran a story last year (Chris W. Cox, “One Big Victory, Now Another Big Battle”, May 15, 2003) summarizing the progress of the bill as well as quoting highlights from my, and others’, House testimony.
Fairness for gun makers, now
“Reasonable people do not believe that Ford or General Motors should be sued when a drunken driver speeds into and kills a pedestrian. They understand that the manufacturer should not be faulted merely because its product is used improperly and illegally. It is obviously the driver who needs to be punished.” The Senate is about to take up a bill, supported by a majority in both Houses, which would protect gun manufacturers from being sued over criminal misuse of their products. Lawmakers who sympathize with the gun-control-through-litigation campaign will try to attach spoiler amendments in hopes of derailing the bill; they shouldn’t be allowed to succeed. (“Gun legislation” (editorial), Hill News, Feb. 25). For our past commentaries on the topic, see Oct. 9 and Apr. 4-6, 2003 and our gun litigation page generally.
Detroit News on gun design
Two weeks ago the once-great Detroit News (oh, how we miss its pre-Gannett days) published a “Special Report” entitled “Flawed guns: America unprotected” (Dec. 14-16) which recycles the plaintiffs’ allegations in seemingly every extant “design defect” case against the firearms industry. Matthew Hunter (“Trigger Finger”) has now posted a ten-part rebuttal (first entry). One of Hunter’s themes: many of the design features portrayed as “defects” in the News series are in fact sought out knowingly by many sophisticated gun buyers, as with Glock’s deliberate omission of a manual safety on its extremely popular police gun.
Berkeley gun lawsuit mistrial
In 1994, 14-year-old Michael Soe removed his father’s loaded Beretta Model 92 pistol from an unlocked camera bag. Ignoring his father’s training and his previous experience showing off the gun, Soe did not pull back the gun’s slide to check the chamber to see if it was empty before firing it at his fifteen-year-old friend, Griffin Dix, killing him with a bullet to the heart.
So naturally, the parents sued Beretta.
The jury deadlocked 6-6; an earlier jury exonerated Beretta, but the verdict was overturned because a court found juror misconduct because jurors complained that they were bullied by a juror who thought the parents were responsible. The parents say they will try again, and a new trial date will be set January 2. (Charles Burress, “Mistrial in Berkeley teen gun suit”, San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 24; Glenn Chapman, “Gun case declared a mistrial due to hung jury”, Oakland Tribune, Dec. 24; Glenn Chapman, “Jurors get Beretta handgun safety case”, Oakland Tribune, Dec. 16; Brian Anderson, “Father of accidentally slain boy finds new hope”, Contra Costa Times, Dec. 5). (Update: Brenda Sandburg, “Third Trial Likely in Suit Against Beretta”, The Recorder, Dec. 29).
New batch of reader letters
We’ve posted another batch of letters from readers. Among topics: a Pennsylvania case in which a doctor was ordered to pay for a mistake by nurses in the operating room; an outcry by consumers over the results of a class action (Schwartz v. Citibank) over late fees which is resulting in a $9 million payout in lawyers’ fees and refunds in the range of 18 cents for many credit card holders; a report from a reader that Norton Internet Security is blocking access to our site because we have too much talk about “weapons”, presumably meaning too much discussion of firearms litigation; and a letter on the prospect of lawyers’ going after the personal assets of Connecticut doctors in negligence cases after exhausting their insurance coverage.
Disassembling Glock
Dan McLaughlin has some thoughts (Dec. 2) on the possible constitutional infirmities of the recent Ninth Circuit decision in Ileto v. Glock (Nov. 20, Nov. 26), in which a three-judge panel okayed a suit against gunmakers for supposedly “oversupplying” the West Coast market in such a way that a crazed neo-Nazi was able to obtain and use several firearms. Among its other problems, the opinion presumes that California can appropriately second-guess and override the more permissive gun-selling laws of the state of Washington, where the guns in question were originally sold. Our take on the same general issue appeared in Reason in 1999.
Welcome National Review Online and Weekly Standard readers
At National Review Online, our Manhattan Institute colleague Jim Copland contrasts Hollywood’s oddly heroic image of the trial lawyer with the often socially destructive reality, citing the blame-shifting for profit exemplified in the Ninth Circuit’s recent Ileto v. Glock case (gun manufacturer, as opposed to criminal, gets sued over racist’s murder spree). (“Fiction to Fact”, Nov. 26) And the Weekly Standard, discussing the same case in its “Scrapbook” feature (Dec. 1, last item, “Shooting Blanks” — currently subscribers only) cites this commentary by Ted Frank on “the excellent website Overlawyered.com”. The Standard’s editorialists also point out that despite the plaintiffs’ elaborately spun theories of negligent distribution, the Glock in the case “was originally sold to a police department. … [In future,] manufacturers like Glock will presumably want to be wary about the kind of police departments they sell their firearms to.”