According to a story in the Nashville Ledger, lawyers for a tragedy-stricken family are proving that the proverbial slippery slope regarding “common sense” gun laws is no myth. No one can fault someone for grieving the loss of a loved one. But one can fault someone for their misdirected remedy: infringing on others’ constitutional rights. Emotion is a poor trier of fact.
Many gun owners believed, and still believe, banning machine guns was just another step toward banning and confiscating all guns. The anti-gun factions derided these prescient folks as gun nuts and fringe kooks. Well, you tell me if this story doesn’t validate worrying about the slippery slope toward gun control by using conflation and extrapolation.
Rather than being satisfied with effectively banning automatic weapons, anti-gun advocates now want to ban semi-automatic firearms under a perverted theory. They posit some deranged lunatic might (actually they argue it’s inevitible) convert a semi-auto firearm into an automatic weapon—because it’s “easy.” Are anyone else’s eyes watering as we slide down that slick hill?
Tragically, Carrie Parson, 31, was one of the 58 people a madman killed during the infamous Las Vegas MGM mass murder. Her family has filed a lawsuit against Colt and seven other gun manufacturers and three gun dealers.
The lawsuit accuses the manufacturers of producing and the dealers for selling firearms that are “thinly disguised” machine guns. They argue that a violent madman modifying an AR-15 into an automatic weapon is inevitable. Therefore, the manufacturers and sellers were liable for showing a “reckless lack of regard for public safety.”
Watch your backs Instant Pot, GoWise, and Presto; these folks may target your products next. The Islamofascist Boston bombers turned pressure cookers (at least one manufactured by the Fagor Group) into bombs to injure and murder people. Seems like this conversion would be even more “inevitable” than turning a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun.
I’ll tell you where the reckless disregard for public safety is: right in the laps of the anti-Second Amendment radicals. A reckless disregard for public safety exists when someone attempts to infringe on Americans’ right to self-defense. And make no mistake: If someone takes away your access to the most efficient, practical means for self-defense, they’re taking away your right to self-defense.
And if they try to sell you the illusion that the government could confiscate all the guns in America —without a civil war— and government could guarantee the police could protect you from violent criminals, they’re lying with a rigor rarely seen in dishonesty. Gun control is a perennial, emotional issue the anti-gun left feels it needs to win votes by leveraging and exploiting tragedy when some evildoer misuses a firearm and commits mayhem.
Though the Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to keep and bear arms, there are anti-gun forces who are attempting to circumvent, infringe upon, or revoke this God-given right. Remember, the government did not give the people the right to self-defense, to keep and bear arms, to life. Our government’s enlightened framers merely recognized the state in which all human beings naturally exist.
Rarely are the cops around to protect you in a given, violent moment. The government must honor your God-given right to protect you and yours with the most effective and practical means available.
Still, to bolster Americans’ Constitutional rights, Congress passed a law in 2005, which protects gun manufacturers and dealers from frivolous lawsuits such as the one mentioned herein and the case resulting from Sandy Hook.
The U.S. Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCA) “To prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others [emphasis mine].”
Pretty clear, right? Yes, but these days we have to worry about the abundance of leftist, activist judges creating new law rather than interpreting the law as it is written. The lawsuit brought against the gun manufacturers and dealers violates the language of the law. You don’t have to agree with the law, but you should agree it means what it clearly says.
From the plain language of the text alone, how hasn’t a judge dismissed this case yet? If the anti-Second Amendment folks want to change the law, do it in Congress, not through an activist court.
However, the anti-gun forces are likely to get sympathetic judges all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The major problem with this and cases like it is people and corporations can go bankrupt just spending the years it takes fighting such anti-liberty nonsense.
Generally, I don’t look overseas for ideas about justice. But to avert abuse of the courts, the Brits seem to have a much better system than we do. Loser pays. If you sue someone, and you don’t prevail, the plaintiff must pay the defendant’s court fees.
The way things work in the U.S., those bringing frivolous lawsuits, thus forcing the other side to pay exorbitant fees to fight the suit, have already won a partial victory just initiating a court action. In fact, the system often forces defendants to settle out of court to avoid the huge expense or even suffering bankruptcy because of the costs of an extended trial.
By bringing a case against a defendant, which is supposedly prohibited by federal law, the leftist anti-gun forces once again show their disdain and disregard for a law they don’t like: Screw the PLCA! We don’t care what it says; we’re suing anyway. Sadly, there are judges who are more than willing to reward their grotesque irresponsibility.
