[118883] in Cypherpunks
Oct. 12 column -- gun lawsuit thrown out
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Sat Oct 9 13:27:29 1999
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From: Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz)
Subject: Oct. 12 column -- gun lawsuit thrown out
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FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 12, 1999
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Anti-gun lawsuit thrown out
Court-watchers were beginning to wonder who was next.
First the attorneys general of most of the states found success in their
efforts to extort billions of dollars from the tobacco industry, hauling
cigarette manufacturers into court to demand payment for the "health care
costs" of sickened cigarette smokers.
(In the real world, of course, cigarette smokers tend to die younger and
thus run up (start ital)lower(end ital) lifetime health care costs; states
have no obligation to pay their health care costs in the first place; and
states have proceeded to use the resultant booty for nearly everything
(start ital)but(end ital) the health care of sick smokers.)
Then a number of cities, most prominently Chicago and New Orleans,
decided they might be able to extort even more funds by suing handgun
manufacturers, contending the gun makers were responsible for the ambulance
and emergency room bills of young drug dealers who shoot each other or get
shot by cops while in the commission of various crimes.
The nation waited with bated breath. How long could it be before someone
figured out how much money awaited the first jurisdiction to stumble on the
exigency of suing GM or Toyota for all the costs resulting from automobile
accidents? From the offices of the tort lawyers, the sound of pencils being
sharpened could be heard late into the night.
Fortunately, at least in one jurisdiction, common sense has now prevailed.
In what The Associated Press is calling the first dismissal of such a
case, Hamilton County (Ohio) Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman last week
threw out Cincinnati's lawsuit against 14 firearms manufacturers, ruling
the city's claims were vague and unsupported by legal precedent.
The city intends to appeal the decision within a few days, said Stanley M.
Chesley, attorney for the city.
But Judge Ruehlman didn't beat about the bush. He threw out the lawsuit
without even allowing the city to proceed with "discovery" -- using blanket
subpoenas to beat the bushes for documents, hoping to find in the files of
Taurus or Smith & Wesson or Beretta a smoking, "Let's hope this doesn't get
out" memo.
The city's suit demanded reimbursement for the costs of providing police,
emergency, court and prison services in connection with shootings in the
city -- not only homicides, but also accidents and suicides.
Suicides? Join the line, all you pharmaceutical, bathtub, and rope
manufacturers.
But Judge Ruehlman found only the Legislature, not the courts, has
authority to regulate product design and marketing. He also rejected
Cincinnati's allegations of design defects and failure to warn users of
possible risks from the use of guns so well-designed that even police
forces carry them.
"There can be liability for failure to warn only if the risk is not open and
obvious or a matter of common knowledge," Judge Ruehlman wrote in his
five-page ruling. "The risks associated with the use of a firearm," on the
other hand, "are open and obvious and matters of common knowledge."
Without even mentioning that Americans have a constitutional right to
keep and bear them -- precisely the right the plaintiffs hope to finesse
out of existence with this indirect attack.
"It very clearly points out the weaknesses in the other cities' suits,"
was the immediate response of Jim Dorr, a Chicago lawyer who represents
handgun manufacturers Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc. of Southport, Conn., and
Smith & Wesson Corp. of Springfield, Mass.
But the ruling may have come too late for civilians wishing to purchase
new handguns manufactured by Colt's Manufacturing Co., one of the
defendants.
Just as those who dreamed up this strategy had hoped, Colt -- a firm which
has done better with military rifle contracts in recent decades than with
its vintage line of handguns, and which now finds itself in the hands of a
foreign national with no love of civilian gun ownership -- announced just
before Judge Ruehlman's action that it will suspend or cease sales to the
civilian market.
The firearms manufacturers would have done better to adopt the advice of
net correspondent Jon Roland, who on Oct. 4 advised, in part:
1) Immediately cease all sales or product deliveries to the police
departments of the cities filing suit, and threaten to cease sales or
deliveries to any dealers who sell to them.
2) Advise plaintiffs that if all lawsuits are not withdrawn within 10
days, all involved manufacturers will cease sales or product deliveries to
law enforcement and military organizations in the United States. Only
civilians will be allowed to purchase their products.
3) If the suits cause costs to increase till it becomes prohibitive to
manufacture for the civilian market, immediately release all designs to the
public domain, publishing them on the Internet, and begin training
civilians to manufacture their own firearms and ammunition.
Good plan. We've taken this lying down, long enough.
Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the
Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web
site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
***
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John
Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and
thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series
of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
