Another court that

Supreme Court in Illinois frees gun makers of liability

From an article in The Washington Times

Link follows: Supreme Court in Illinois frees gun makers of liability

By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Illinois Supreme Court yesterday refused to hold firearms manufacturers responsible for Chicago street violence or of knowingly supplying guns to criminals — a decision that could affect the filing of future lawsuits.
The city of Chicago sued 18 gun manufacturers, four distributors and 11 dealers — asserting the firearms industry is liable for causing a "public nuisance" — and demanded $433 million for health care costs and city emergency expenses.
Writing for the court, Justice Rita Garman said the city's claims are "the result of numerous unforeseeable intervening criminal acts by third parties not under defendant's control."
"The mere fact that defendants' conduct in their plants, offices, and stores puts guns into the stream of commerce does not state a claim for public nuisance," Justice Garman said. "It is the presence and use of the guns within the City of Chicago that constitutes the alleged nuisance, not the activities at the defendants' various places of business."
In refusing to define public nuisance as it relates to weapons, the court expressed a philosophy of judicial restraint. "Any change of this magnitude in the law affecting a highly regulated industry must be the work of the legislature, brought about by the political process, not the work of the courts," the decision said.
Gun rights advocates hailed the decision as the final defeat of "abusive lawsuits" they say are intended to drive U.S. firearms manufacturers out of business.

A big /salute to the Illinois Supreme court for recognizing that guns don't kill people, people kill people. A further /salute to them for realizing that if this is an area in the law that needs to be corrected, that the job of doing so belongs to the legislature.

Can I recommend the majority from this court for elevation to a few appeals courts further up in the federal chain?

politics

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Guns were designed a couple hundred years ago for one purpose. Not to hang above a mantle to gather dust, but to kill. Whatever it was pointed at it was designed to kill. What it killed was at the discretion of the owner/user. How it was used was finally written as law. Now, I believe, this attempt to sue manufacturers for making a product that lives up to its claims is just another attempt to circumvent the Second Ammendment.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Reply #1 By: Citizen voodoostation - 11/19/2004 7:41:32 PM
Guns were designed a couple hundred years ago for one purpose. Not to hang above a mantle to gather dust, but to kill. Whatever it was pointed at it was designed to kill. What it killed was at the discretion of the owner/user. How it was used was finally written as law. Now, I believe, this attempt to sue manufacturers for making a product that lives up to its claims is just another attempt to circumvent the Second Ammendment.

Exactly the point.

Guns are dangerous weapons, but in and of themselves, guns are not a problem.

It takes action by an individual, or individuals, to pair up a gun with a bullet (or bullets) so that the gun works. Without loading a gun, it's useless.

Once loaded, it still takes an individual to point it at something, and then once pointed at something, to pull the trigger which causes the projectile object (the bullet) to be expelled from the barrel and be propelled towards a thing or a being.

Blaming the gun manufacturer because the gun was used in that manner by someone to commit a criminal act is just plain wrong. The gun manufacturer sells the gun because they can make money by doing so, and full well knowing that the gun may be used in act of self defense or in a sporting manner. They do not condone the use of the product as a weapon to be used in a crime. If they did, then perhaps they could be liable for the use of the product.

There may be very specific individual cases where a gun manufacturer may be responsible for the misuse of their product -- for example (and I even find issues with this example), in the case of the Bushmaster firearms company, one of their products was misused by a buyer that bought the weapon from a dealer that was not living up to their responsibilities as a firearms seller. In this example, John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malveau bought the weapon from a firearms dealer in the Seattle area (I believe that was the area of the seller) and the seller was such a poor record keeper that they weren't tracking who bought what, how many, where, etc. They continued to sell more and more weaponry that was supplied by the manufacturer who never thought that the sales were worthy of any sort of follow up.

I'm doing a poor job in describing the case(s), but it's one of the few times when I actually did feel that it was appropriate that the gun manufacturer may have failed in their responsibilities to see that their products were being purchased and used in a responsible manner.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Guns are not the problem. A proliferation of guns, gotten too easily into the wrong hands are the problem. The NRA was against waiting periods for criminal checks, against banning even the most dangerous weapons from getting to the public, oppose any efforts to hold gun conventions to the same laws that apply to gun shops, and are against requirements for registration of weapons. In short the NRA has been against every legislation aimed at gun owners. They want zero control of weapons.

Their big argument that only criminals will have guns is ludicrous for two reasons. First, not even the most extreme gun control fanatic supports a total ban of guns (at least not the ones that are elected to office). Secondly, to say that because a law is broken that it should be striken from the books is ludicrous. The laws against murder have not stopped some from commiting murder. Yet noone believes that the crime of murder should be taken off the books. Should we pander to criminals and make their jobs easier?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Reply #3 By: whoman69 - 11/19/2004 9:30:03 PM
Guns are not the problem. A proliferation of guns, gotten too easily into the wrong hands are the problem.

And how do you propose we fix this?

Their big argument that only criminals will have guns is ludicrous for two reasons. First, not even the most extreme gun control fanatic supports a total ban of guns (at least not the ones that are elected to office). Secondly, to say that because a law is broken that it should be striken from the books is ludicrous. The laws against murder have not stopped some from commiting murder. Yet noone believes that the crime of murder should be taken off the books. Should we pander to criminals and make their jobs easier?

If your going to use a NRA quote, please use the *entire* correct quote. It goes "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.".

The law that you are refering to (I believe that your talking about the AWB?) is not only broke, it accomplishes *NOTHING*! It took no firearms out of any criminals hands. It banned certain firearms on looks alone! There was still a pile around. And before you start, guess what? The AWB was STILL law when the "DC sniper" went into action. So now tell me how it helped?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.

There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting and posting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!

View all recent posts

Mark all posts as read Delete cookies created by the forum Return to Top

Stardock Forums v Server Load Time: Page Render Time: