Explaining for the record why Bernie's vote for gun manufacturer immunity was so horrible.

[DanTex]

Last edited Thu Jul 16, 2015, 10:57 AM - Edit history (1)

Whether you are for Bernie or Hillary, or anyone else, no progressive should be in favor of the NRA's push to give gun manufacturer legal immunity.

The standard NRA argument goes something like this. The bill only gives immunity from lawsuits for criminal misuse. If some crazy guy runs over a bunch of kids in a Ford, should you be able to sue Ford?

This is looking for a "no", but actually the answer is "yes". You should, but you will lose, and will have to pay Ford's legal costs because this is obviously a frivolous lawsuit. Ford doesn't need any special immunity law to protect itself from this. That in itself should demonstrate that this is not at all what the law was about.

Even the silly Ford analogy can be made into a case that should be tried in court. For example, suppose:
1) The Ford had special spikes on it
2) Because of the spikes, an extra 30 kids died
3) The spikes have no use except for killing more kids
4) Ford internal research showed that the profit they were getting by offering the spikes came almost entirely from people who ran over kids
5) Being run over by spiked Fords was killing thousands of people every year
6) Ford worked with dealerships to market the spiked cars in areas where they knew a lot of kid-runner-overs would buy them
Kinda changes the picture, doesn't it?

Is this exactly what was going on with guns? No. But it's a hell of a lot closer than the first analogy. And you know what the right way to determine which of the two analogies is closer is? You bring all the evidence to a trial, and let the court decide. Exactly what the NRA wanted to avoid.

More evidence that the lawsuits weren't remotely "frivolous" is that they were succeeding. Near the end of the Clinton administration, Smith and Wesson settled a huge lawsuit and agreed to change its business practices and institute gun safety measures in order to reduce the incidence of their guns being used in crimes. The NRA did not like this one bit. So they made the immunity bill their top legislative priority.

It's disappointing that some (not all) of the Bernie supporters appear to have latched on the NRA talking points on this one. Obviously, the usual gun nuts will support anything that means more guns, but otherwise progressive people should not be swayed by NRA talking points on this horrible bill, even if someone like Bernie Sanders is repeating them.