- coolmike699
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- Fabled Heroic Member
...the makers of the gun used in the crime?
Under a controversial law Congress passed seven years ago, gun manufacturers are explicitly shielded from lawsuits that would seek to hold them liable for crimes committed with weapons they sold.
The 2005 law has drawn attacks from gun control advocates and constitutional scholars, who portray it as a powerful insulator for gun manufacturers. Why should gun manufacturers, they ask, enjoy a special liability protection not available to other companies that make potentially lethal products?
The origins of the shield law stemmed from a rising tide of litigation against the gun companies by crime victims. In most of these cases, plaintiffs alleged that the company was negligent in not forcing the dealers of its products to properly abide by existing laws that prohibit, for example, convicted felons from obtaining a firearm.
The most significant of these cases, and the one perceived as most damaging by the gun lobby, was brought by the families of the 13 people killed or seriously injured over a three-week span by the Washington, D.C.-area snipers, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo. The pair used a .223 Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, similar to the one police said was used by Adam Lanza to kill 20 children in 6 adults with brutal efficiency in Newtown last week.
If you're interested in how people can bring cases against gun makers for crimes that their weapons were used to commit, here's a guide on how lawyers do exactly that.
Gun dealers and manufacturers can be sued when they have been extremely negligent or when they knowingly sell guns to dangerous people, like this case:
Coday was prohibited under federal law from purchasing a firearm, but two days before the shooting he walked out of a gun store in Juneau with a Ruger .22-caliber rifle. Ray Coxe, the owner of the store, claimed Coday stole the gun when his back was turned and left $200 on the counter.
But it is extremely difficult for victims of gun violence to sue the makers or dealers of the guns used in any other case. Is that how it should be? Or should gun manufacturers be just as liable for their products as any other company?