Sandy Hook Law Suit

[white avenger]

I just read this, and I would like your opinions on it.

Sandy Hook families' lawsuit against gun makers set - CNN.com

My question is, how can the manufacturer be held responsible for the criminal abuse of their product, regardless of what that product is? If they knowingly produce and sell a faulty product, certainly, but that simply isn't the case here. Neither can it be argued, in my opinion, that firearms should be singled out in this way because of the deaths that occur from their criminal misuse, unless we are also going to be holding Ford and General Motors responsible every time some drunk commits hit and run.

To me, this isn't a gun control issue, it's a common sense issue. How can we hold Remington responsible for the criminal use of one of their products, without opening a floodgate of law suits against anyone for manufacturing anything that might in any way be used to harm anyone?

 

[Blaze]

I'm confused. How did the kid get a hold of the gun? Who sold the gun, and to whom? I do believe this to be, to an extent, a gun control issue. When guns are accessible to troubled teenagers, there is a problem. And by the sound of it, it was a military type weapon. Why would someone need a gun that can unload over 150 rounds in what was likely a short period of time. I don't know if the problem is the law, or the companies, or the family that bought the gun, and I don't know enough about the US law to make an informed statement about that, but there is a problem somewhere and at the moment it is not being solved.

 

[Blair]

Might as well have overweight people start suing donut companies.

I agree, it's stupid. It's sad and tragic but you cannot blame the manufacturer for what happened.

Being in Australia we have strict gun control laws. This is pretty much unheard of since the laws were brought in.

 

[Blaze]

Might as well have overweight people start suing donut companies.

Just to play devil's advocate, what about cigarettes? Could companies be blamed for those? If companies didn't care so much about money and cared a little more about people's health, no companies would ever make cigarettes. Or how often do pharmaceutical companies get blamed and sued when some ill side effect is found for a medecine 10 years after its entrance on the market (aka, a side effect that could not be predicted). It's not unheard of for companies to hold the blame.

I do think however that in this case it is more an issue with the people that purchases the arm and/or the laws in place.

 

[Blair]

Oh exactly! Can sue for just about anything these days. I remember reading about one guy who fell through the roof of a family home that he was trying to steal from. He broke a few bones and successfully sued the family. Was insane.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Blair,
the gun control laws here in Australia are severely lax, almost as crap as in America.

Everybody knows that guns are sold in boxes, why should a manufacturer be deemed to be at fault because a person takes the gun out of the box and puts umpteen bullets into the gun and kills people?
But I digress.
What was said was why should a manufacturer be blamed for the criminal use of their product?
So how about this
What if a member of ISIS blamed an American gun manufacturer for the legal use of their product?

 

[Blair]

I wouldn't call our gun laws lax. Semi-automatic and automatic guns are banned (unless if you're Government personnel) and to own a gun you need a genuine reason to hold a license. As soon as your reason ends you have to hand in your gun (for example when I was growing up on my parents farm, my father had a gun to shoot the foxes. When we moved he handed in the gun)

 

[Washburne]

I've never hid the fact that I think american gun laws are totally bonkers. I do understand the difference in mentality between our countries and that changing laws take time. I don't hate guns or gun owners, something that many seem to take for granted when you don't like the gun laws. I just think it went way too far, and easy, in america a long time ago. I get collecting guns or going to a gun ranch and shot. It's just an incredible difference from that to the kind of guns you can buy in stores. In my eyes.

Neither can it be argued, in my opinion, that firearms should be singled out in this way because of the deaths that occur from their criminal misuse, unless we are also going to be holding Ford and General Motors responsible every time some drunk commits hit and run.

To me, this isn't a gun control issue, it's a common sense issue. How can we hold Remington responsible for the criminal use of one of their products, without opening a floodgate of law suits against anyone for manufacturing anything that might in any way be used to harm anyone?

To me the huge difference is that if a gun is used to kill it's used the way it was designed for. To harm people is far from what a car is made for. You can harm people with anything. A plastic bag can kill people in at least two different ways of choking and I'm sure people could get creative.

With that said when or if, depending on the country, it's legal to buy guns you've kind of crossed the point were you can blame the manufacturer for making said product. Isn't the suit about advertising and not actually selling?

 

[Bluebird]

I just read this, and I would like your opinions on it.

Sandy Hook families' lawsuit against gun makers set - CNN.com

My question is, how can the manufacturer be held responsible for the criminal abuse of their product, regardless of what that product is? If they knowingly produce and sell a faulty product, certainly, but that simply isn't the case here. Neither can it be argued, in my opinion, that firearms should be singled out in this way because of the deaths that occur from their criminal misuse, unless we are also going to be holding Ford and General Motors responsible every time some drunk commits hit and run.

To me, this isn't a gun control issue, it's a common sense issue. How can we hold Remington responsible for the criminal use of one of their products, without opening a floodgate of law suits against anyone for manufacturing anything that might in any way be used to harm anyone?

To me the huge difference is that if a gun is used to kill it's used the way it was designed for. To harm people is far from what a car is made for. You can harm people with anything. A plastic bag can kill people in at least two different ways of choking and I'm sure people could get creative.

With that said when or if, depending on the country, it's legal to buy guns you've kind of crossed the point were you can blame the manufacturer for making said product. Isn't the suit about advertising and not actually selling?

This is what I was going to say. Cars are designed for transport, guns are designed to kill. So I can see where the anger towards gun manufacturers comes from, but it's a whole different matter to make them responsible. If US law allows guns to be manufactured for money then there's money to be made, of course. They are within the law, so I'm not sure how you'd have a case to sue them.

As for guns, I'm sure I've said before what I think of them. We've never had a gun culture so I tend not to think about them in the context of my own country. In fact the UK put in extremely strict gun laws in '96 when a guy shot up a primary school killing almost a whole class of 5 year olds in Dunblane, Scotland. Andy Murray, the tennis player, was one of the kids at school that day when it happened.

 

[Athena]

I agree with the simple fact that guns are created to harm. You could argue you bought it for self-defence, but that gun is still meant to harm someone. It's not a flower that pops out of the end.

Surely the question that needs to be asked is why was it so easy for a clearly disturbed individual to have access to the gun in the first place? I don't know what the rules are for gun ownership in America, but here in the UK they're very strict. The problem I guess is, you make it harder to get a gun lawfully and the sale just moves into the black market, making it even worse....

 

[Professor Walsh]

Families say gun marketing strategy deliberately targets young men, some of whom are inclined to violence.

This isn't quite the same, I'd say, as flat out blaming the gun maker for the use of the gun.

 

[GwenRaiden]

Money. Money money money money. Money is the root of all evil.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

For those of you in the rest of the world, you have to understand...

and if that isn't enough:

[youtube]

[/youtube]

 

[brinkster130]

Seems like they are doing this mainly because they know they have no shot at changing gun safety laws and well money. Money talks...if they win a large sum of money it might hold some weight in the gun control debate.

With this line of thinking shouldn't they sue the mother as well - the person whose gun was used to commit said crime? Shouldn't she hold responsibility since she didn't make it harder for her mentally ill son to steal her weapons?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

With this line of thinking shouldn't they sue the mother as well - the person whose gun was used to commit said crime? Shouldn't she hold responsibility since she didn't make it harder for her mentally ill son to steal her weapons?

Yes. It's just utterly ridiculous. There is no way this ad could in anyway be deemed as 'encouraging' what transpired at the school. To say the shooter found inspiration from, and was targeted by the ad is absurd. And to use the ad as the ONLY basis in which they are suing the gun manufacturer is also absurd.

 

[Professor Walsh]

If that is the ad they are referring to, I agree that it makes no sense. One can say that it follows a certain romantisicing of guns that I have no taste for, no matter how enjoyable I found shooting, but making tasteless advertising campaigns is hardly a crime.

The whole lawsuit climate in the U.S. is a mystery to me,

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Why dont they try suing the makers of Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty? Or you know.. maybe someone could look into the fact that there are 'kids' out there making School Shooting videos games in which their character goes to school and kills classmates and staff, the more you kill the higher your score. Lanza had one such game.

It's too easy to point the finger and say "big bad gun!" when guns are not the problem.

 

[Blaze]

Why dont they try suing the makers of Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty? Or you know.. maybe someone could look into the fact that there are 'kids' out there making School Shooting videos games in which their character goes to school and kills classmates and staff, the more you kill the higher your score. Lanza had one such game.

It's too easy to point the finger and say "big bad gun!" when guns are not the problem.

But video games won't kill anyone, guns will. It's the same thing as the car vs gun thing. Guns are made to kill, video games are not. Yes, it's easy to point the finger, and although people are the problem, without guns there would be no shootings.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

But video games won't kill anyone, guns will. It's the same thing as the car vs gun thing. Guns are made to kill, video games are not. Yes, it's easy to point the finger, and although people are the problem, without guns there would be no shootings.

People kill people. If you have a person that is so broken that they feel the need to murder someone a gun only makes it easier. You can use a rock and kill people. It's a fantasy to believe in a world without guns. You can ban guns and there will still be shootings.

I wont say anymore as I believe there should be more guns and not less.

 

[Washburne]

Video games, movies, books, music and so on can influence people to do things so I could compare to this case since they're putting the attention to advertising.