# Can/should anything be done about US shootings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263 "2015-12-02T23:16:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/322 "2015-12-10T20:42:53Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > It depends. Right after Sandy Hook? Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/323 "2015-12-10T20:45:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m also in favor of eliminating special legal protections that only apply to gun manufacturers. There was a law that protected gun manufacturers from liability for the criminal or negligent acts of others. So if I shoot you with a glock, you couldn’t turn around and sue glock. Its a pretty meaningless law unless some state decides to deliberately place liability on manufacturers in a way that we have never done before. IOW that law was much like the laws that made it illegal to institute sharia law in Texas. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/324 "2015-12-10T20:46:44Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You also seem more reasonable than most. However, what benefit do you think mass gun registration would do? All guns are now “registered” when sold. They are?!!!? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/325 "2015-12-10T20:58:46Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > There was a law that protected gun manufacturers from liability for the criminal or negligent acts of others. So if I shoot you with a glock, you couldn’t turn around and sue glock. Its a pretty meaningless law unless some state decides to deliberately place liability on manufacturers in a way that we have never done before. > > IOW that law was much like the laws that made it illegal to institute sharia law in Texas. No, that’s not right. Prior to the law’s passing, there were numerous lawsuits that were threatening the firearms industry as a whole. The lawsuits rested on some novel theory that the manufacturers should have known their product would be used in criminal activity and therefore were liable. The attempt was some collective guilt scheme that assigned liability based on percent of market if I recall correctly. In any event, the PLCAA doesn’t apply special protections, it codifies protections that exist for every other industry. A similar type protection was used when creating the vaccine court. [See this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=605448&page=40), post 3903 through around 3993 for further discussion. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/326 "2015-12-10T21:06:04Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > They are?!!!? :eek: You have to fill out a Federal Form at the FFL dealer, yes? And states have other requirements. Now yes, in some states, person to person sales of used guns are not always required to be recorded. The so-called “gun show loophole”. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/327 "2015-12-10T21:35:35Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Maybe one gets that impression from such inexplicable resistance to passing any effective gun laws that even Sandy Hook had no effect, WTF does that have to do with the notion that there is no gun control? Aren’t you simply wrong that there is no gun control in this country? Shouldn’t you just admit you were wrong and say that there is gun control but you want more, a lot more. Don’t pretend that no gun control exists, it undermines your credibility. Second of all the main push on gun control after Sandy hook was an Assault Weapons Ban. Its about the least effective method of gun control that has ever been seriously proposed so the reason Sandy hook didn’t result in MORE gun control is because the gun control advocates in this country are retarded. > [@](#): > > thanks to the NRA suggesting that more guns was the answer, pulling the strings of all the Congressmen they control, They control votes and those votes control the congressmen. You may not like the results in every instance but that is how democracy works here. How does it work where you live? > [@](#): > > and suppressing research on gun violence. The law prohibits the CDC (and some other health care agencies) from promoting gun control because of a pronounced bias towards gun control by people in those organizations. Surveys and studies are conducted by the FBI and the Department of Justice on a fairly regular basis. > [@](#): > > It’s not surprising that virtually all the gun crimes horrific enough to make the front pages Which is a teeny tiny sliver of gun violence in this country. > [@](#): > > turn out to have been committed with guns “legally obtained”, usually one or more semi-automatic rifles and pistols that were bought by some deranged lunatic with the same ease as buying a candy bar You’ve never tried to buy a gun in America have you? It is significantly more difficult than buying a candy bar. This sort of hyperbole undermines your credibility. That and the fact that most gun murders are committed by people who are not allowed to buy a gun. > [@](#): > > – weapons that would either be strictly regulated in any civilized country or prohibited altogether. That’s why. So what you meant to say is that the USA has plenty of gun control but because its not a virtual ban on modern guns its the same thing as having no gun control. > [@](#): > > And then there’s the marvelous category of ATF [Title II weaponry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_II_weapons). Even machine guns are legal in the US, but they’re expensive and you have to register and pay a $200 ATF tax. But not just machine guns – the same bit of paperwork can also get you silencers, and guns disguised as canes, pens, and cell phones. Title II also covers grenades, mortars, and rocket launchers, in case you want some of those. Some lunatic Congressman introduced legislation just a couple of months ago to take silencers off the Title II list and make them easier to get in the interest of “hearing protection”. It’s just rampaging insanity. There’s no other word for it. Would you like to guess how many people have been murdered by machine guns in the last 80 years? Would it surprise you to find out that there have only be a couple of cases of someone being murdered by a Title II machine gun? Have you ever seen a “silencer” or heard one? I’m going to guess that you think that a silencer will make a sniper rifle go “thwip” “thwip” > **[Silencer (firearms)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressor#Effectiveness)** > > A silencer, also known as a sound suppressor, suppressor, or sound moderator, is a muzzle device that suppresses the blast created when a gun (firearm or airgun) is discharged, thereby reducing the acoustic intensity of the muzzle report (sound of a gunshot) and jump, by modulating the speed and pressure of the propellant gas released from the muzzle. Like other muzzle devices, a silencer can be a detachable accessory mounted to the muzzle, or an integral part of the barrel. > A typical silencer i... Wearing hearing protection while hunting decreases situational awareness so a lot of people go without. The hearing damage over time is measurable. Suppressors could mitigate that. So maybe its not insanity on their part but ignorance on yours. > [@](#): > > That statistically there are around 9 guns for every 10 Americans – some numbers make that to be as many as 11 – but you knew that. The highest by far of any first-world nation on the planet. I was asking because, by most estimates, about a third of American own guns. Not 90%. If it were 90% we wouldn’t have a gun control debate in this country. > [@](#): > > Of course not. The contribution of gun ownership rate to homicide is a complex interplay of number of guns in circulation, how well they are regulated, and the prevailing gun culture in society. The dramatic – almost incredible – difference in gun violence between the US and all other developed countries is accounted for by striking differences in all three of those factors, not just in gun numbers. But they’re all inter-related Really? because it kinda sounded like you were saying that the decisive variable that accounted for the difference in gun violence between the US and Canada was the prevalence of guns. Now you’re saying its a bunch of different factors of which the presence of guns is only one factor. > [@](#): > > I agree. But the fact is that academic studies strongly suggest that given all three factors I mentioned above, or even just the last two factors, overall homicide rates would go down because the “substitution effect” would be relatively low. cite? The vast majority of guns are legally owned by law abiding citizens. The most pronounced effect of any attempts to reduce the number of guns in America will be at the expense of those law abiding gun owners. Considering that the majority of gun crimes are NOT committed by law abiding gun owners, I don’t think you would see any thing approaching a proportional reduction in gun violence. > [@](#): > > Simply because hitting someone over the head with a chair – or whatever imagery you want to use – is not the same as shooting them in the head with a gun. It matters who has the guns. What law do you propose we pass that would disarm the criminals and gang members? > [@](#): > > Here are some of those studies: > **1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide** > Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide > > **2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.** > We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded. > [Homicide | Harvard Injury Control Research Center | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/) > And here are homicide rates from all causes – knock yourself out. Notice that the US per-capita homicide rate is more than 2.7 times the total of Canada, 3.8 times the total of France, the UK, and Australia. So again, these are not marginal percentage point differences, they are whole multiples, far beyond what can possibly be accounted for by socioeconomic differences, though those certainly do exist. > [List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate) Aside from the fact that David Hemenway is incredibly biased and has no credibility it sounds like you are saying that excluding the USA from the studies only sometimes results in a correlation between gun availability and homicide. I would trust the raw data collected by Hemenway but I would not trust his interpretation of that data. And social differences can certainly account for LARGE differences in homicide rates. I suspect that the gun ownership rate in my neighborhood is at least as high as it is in Detroit or Baltimore and yet the murder rate is orders of magnitude lower. Who has the guns makes a big difference. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/328 "2015-12-10T22:02:37Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Here’s the table from your own cite! > > OR† (95% CI) > Firearms (exposure)\* – > Suffocation 2.6 (2.1 to 3.1) > Crash/jump 8.0 (6.4 to 10.2) > Exposure 18.0 (12.8 to 25.3) > Cuts 325.5 (256.8 to 412.7) > Poisons 270.4 > > It shows that my previous cite was underestimating the relative lethality of guns relative to jumping or poisoning! > > Do you not understand what you’re reading? The odds ratios there are for firearms relative to each other method. The odds of successfully killing yourself are 2.6 times greater if you use a gun compared to suffocation, 8.0 times greater compared to jumping and 270 times greater compared to poisoning. > > What exactly makes you think I need to dig deeper? 96% of people who try to kill themselves with firearms end up dying from the attempt. 90% of people who try to kill themselves through suffocation end up dying from the attempt. Am I reading that wrong? Can you explain how you get triple the lethality from firearms given those numbers. Are they using survival rates to come up with the ratios because I can see how you could use survival rates to get to those sort of numbers but I don’t see how you can use the actual death rate to get those numbers. So maybe the study is defining lethality in a way that is not intuitive to me. If so then the way you are presenting the information is pretty misleading. Fact ~96% of gun suicide attempts result in death. Fact ~90& of suffocation suicide attempts result in death. My opinion: Saying that firearms are three times as lethal as the next most lethal form of suicide is pretty fucking deceiving ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/329 "2015-12-10T22:07:38Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > compared to pretty much any other equivalent nation, those guns laws are very much the equivalent of “virtually no restriction” In other countries what you call gun control is actually simply a virtual ban on guns. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/330 "2015-12-10T22:11:11Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Yes. I disagree. If the election were held the week after Sandy Hook and they ran on licensing and registration, I think things could have gone against you. What stopped it was the combination of the vilification of virtually all gun owners and the retarded form of gun control they tried to push. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/331 "2015-12-10T22:13:18Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > No, that’s not right. Prior to the law’s passing, there were numerous lawsuits that were threatening the firearms industry as a whole. The lawsuits rested on some novel theory that the manufacturers should have known their product would be used in criminal activity and therefore were liable. The attempt was some collective guilt scheme that assigned liability based on percent of market if I recall correctly. > > In any event, the PLCAA doesn’t apply special protections, it codifies protections that exist for every other industry. A similar type protection was used when creating the vaccine court. [See this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=605448&page=40), post 3903 through around 3993 for further discussion. I’m not sure that is inconsistent with what I said. The codification was about as necessary as prohibiting the implementation of Sharia law in Texas. If we are a nation of laws then those sort s of lawsuits can’t get very far. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/332 "2015-12-10T22:16:02Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You have to fill out a Federal Form at the FFL dealer, yes? And states have other requirements. That’s not registration. It could easily become part of a registration system but its not even half way there. If we were anywhere near registration, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as tough a lift to try and get to licensing and registration. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/333 "2015-12-10T22:32:00Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I was asking because, by most estimates, about a third of American own guns. Not 90%. If it were 90% we wouldn’t have a gun control debate in this country. > > The vast majority of guns are legally owned by law abiding citizens. The most pronounced effect of any attempts to reduce the number of guns in America will be at the expense of those law abiding gun owners. Considering that the majority of gun crimes are NOT committed by law abiding gun owners, I don’t think you would see any thing approaching a proportional reduction in gun violence. > > It matters who has the guns. What law do you propose we pass that would disarm the criminals and gang members? > > Aside from the fact that David Hemenway is incredibly biased and has no credibility it sounds like you are saying that excluding the USA from the studies only sometimes results in a correlation between gun availability and homicide. I would trust the raw data collected by Hemenway but I would not trust his interpretation of that data. > . Likely less. Maybe 300,000,000 guns. Less than 10000 of these used in a murder. That math indicates one gun in 30000 is used to murder someone. ---
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/334 "2015-12-10T23:16:20Z")
All I want for Christmas is to get Hentor on Fact Checker. Can anybody advise me as the proper steps? > **[Analysis | Marco Rubio’s claim that no recent mass shootings would have been...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/10/marco-rubios-claim-that-no-recent-mass-shootings-would-have-been-prevented-by-gun-laws/)** > > Rubio's bold claim earns a rare Geppetto Checkmark. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/335 "2015-12-10T23:28:03Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > WTF does that have to do with the notion that there is no gun control? Aren’t you simply wrong that there is no gun control in this country? Shouldn’t you just admit you were wrong and say that there is gun control but you want more, a lot more. Don’t pretend that no gun control exists, it undermines your credibility. When criminals and the mentally unstable have been documented as having had legal possession of multiple weapons of immense power in innumerable tragic shootings, when almost anyone can buy virtually any weapons just because he wants them, with minimal screening, to an extent unheard of in any other advanced nation on earth, when the gun death numbers are at the huge levels that they are, then it goes without saying that there is no effective or meaningful gun control. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So what you meant to say is that the USA has plenty of gun control but because its not a virtual ban on modern guns its the same thing as having no gun control. That’s interesting because you or someone else was going on and on upthread about how many guns Canada allegedly has and yet gun violence is relatively low. I’ve described it an an example of effective gun control, but there’s an average of about 31 guns for every 100 residents, or over 11 million guns in the country. Please tell us how 11 million guns is “a virtual ban” or admit _ **YOU** _ were wrong, because that sort of contradiction undermines your credibility. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Second of all the main push on gun control after Sandy hook was an Assault Weapons Ban. Its about the least effective method of gun control that has ever been seriously proposed so the reason Sandy hook didn’t result in MORE gun control is because the gun control advocates in this country are retarded. Banning high-capacity semi-automatic weapons isn’t “the least effective method” just because you say so, just like it wasn’t the main or only push in Congress just because you say so. The White House proposed [at least a dozen significant reforms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_control_after_the_Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting). AFAIK, Congress passed not a single one. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > They control votes and those votes control the congressmen. You may not like the results in every instance but that is how democracy works here. How does it work where you live? Well, it’s a bit OT, but since you ask, the way it works where I live is much the way it works in most functional democracies: a reasonably informed populace (informed in part by a trusted and objective public broadcasting system) elects representatives who more or less enact their stated policies, usually in the public interest. In this way most such nations have advanced the public interest in such areas as effective gun control, universal health care, and a progressive system of taxation. In contrast to having special interests like the NRA and the Koch brothers spending lavishly to tell voters what to think, and buying politicians that they can control like puppets on a string as to what bills they need passed or repealed. Which is why you have NO effective gun control, NO universal health care, and a tax system that overwhelmingly favors those who can afford to buy and control politicians. Some years ago Fortune magazine ranked the NRA as the #1 most powerful and influential lobby organization in Washington. To say that basically no significant gun law can get passed without their approval is an understatement; ever since they formed their Legislative Affairs Division in 1934 (now ILA) they’ve basically been writing the gun laws, and its PAC is among the biggest of all spenders in Congressional elections. The NRA is undoubtedly one of the most insidious, powerful, and corrupt forces to have ever usurped the public interest in a modern democracy. And they do it by exerting ironclad control over politicians, information, and public perception. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > … because **the gun control advocates in this country are retarded**. > > The law prohibits the CDC (and some other health care agencies) from promoting gun control because of **a pronounced bias towards gun control by people in those organizations.** > > … So maybe its not insanity on their part but **ignorance on yours**. > > … David Hemenway is\*\* incredibly biased and has no credibility\*\* … Right on – thanks for perfectly proving my above point! According to you, anyone who supports gun control, or provides data that supports gun control (including government agencies) is either retarded, incredibly biased, or ignorant. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/336 "2015-12-10T23:30:32Z")
> [@ChickenLegs](#): > > All I want for Christmas is to get Hentor on Fact Checker. Can anybody advise me as the proper steps? > > [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/10/marco-rubios-claim-that-no-recent-mass-shootings-would-have-been-prevented-by-gun-laws/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/10/marco-rubios-claim-that-no-recent-mass-shootings-would-have-been-prevented-by-gun-laws/) I waste too much time just fact checking a dozen gunnuts on a message board. I don’t care to have to fact check the whole country. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/337 "2015-12-10T23:49:52Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I’m not sure that is inconsistent with what I said. The codification was about as necessary as prohibiting the implementation of Sharia law in Texas. If we are a nation of laws then those sort s of lawsuits can’t get very far. It was necessary. The lawsuits were civil and we’re they to go through enough trials eventually there would be a sympathetic jury and the gun industry would be damaged based on frivalousness. Sharia law in Texas has about zero chance of coming to pass. A succesful lawsuit against gun manufacturers was a matter of time since gun control advocates could forum shop. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/338 "2015-12-11T01:03:17Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > It was necessary. The lawsuits were civil and we’re they to go through enough trials eventually there would be a sympathetic jury and the gun industry would be damaged based on frivalousness. Sharia law in Texas has about zero chance of coming to pass. A succesful lawsuit against gun manufacturers was a matter of time since gun control advocates could forum shop. Auto manufacturers and other industries survive many successful lawsuits over the years. Gun manufacturers shouldn’t be treated as some special snowflake… They can raise prices or lower expenses if they need more to cover lawsuits, just like other industries, many of whom are targeted by activists as much as they are. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/339 "2015-12-11T01:18:27Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Auto manufacturers and other industries survive many successful lawsuits over the years. Gun manufacturers shouldn’t be treated as some special snowflake… They can raise prices or lower expenses if they need more to cover lawsuits, just like other industries, many of whom are targeted by activists as much as they are. You’re equivocating on the types of lawsuits that are allowed and prohibited. Lawsuits against gun manufacturers due to defective products are allowed, just like against cars. What people do not sue car makers for is accidents that are caused by the person, not the vehicle. An analogy would be: A person parks their Toyota in the driveway, and a criminal steals it, robs a bank, then runs over and kills a pedestrian. Then the estate of the pedestrian sues the Toyota. That type of lawsuit is not allowed for gun makers under PLCAA, and rightfully so. Do you think it should be? If a person drives their Toyota under normal conditions, and the engine explodes due to faulty wiring and defective materials that Toyota knew about killing the driver, then the estate can sue Toyota. If a person uses their firearm and due to poor manufacturing and substandard materials, the firearm explodes and kills the shooter, the estate can still sue the firearm maker under PLCAA. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/340 "2015-12-11T01:21:49Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > You’re equivocating on the types of lawsuits that are allowed and prohibited. > > Lawsuits against gun manufacturers due to defective products are allowed, just like against cars. What people do not sue car makers for is accidents that are caused by the person, not the vehicle. An analogy would be: A person parks their Toyota in the driveway, and a criminal steals it, robs a bank, then runs over and kills a pedestrian. Then the estate of the pedestrian sues the Toyota. That type of lawsuit is not allowed for gun makers under PLCAA, and rightfully so. Do you think it should be? > > If a person drives their Toyota under normal conditions, and the engine explodes due to faulty wiring and defective materials that Toyota knew about killing the driver, then the estate can sue Toyota. > > If a person uses their firearm and due to poor manufacturing and substandard materials, the firearm explodes and kills the shooter, the estate can still sue the firearm maker under PLCAA. So you’re saying Toyota is protected by law against that kind of lawsuit? Please cite. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/341 "2015-12-11T01:30:15Z")
Toyota paid out lots of money for “defects” in their vehicle, which after investigation appeared to be just major faults like “driver confused gas pedal and brake” or “driver haphazardly threw floor mat in car and it bunched up under the pedal.” But as far as I know there is no major effort to sue car manufacturers for punitive measures, except maybe patent trolls. But damn if the people against PLCAA don’t come across as [disingenuous and shrill](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/13/bernie_sanders_on_guns_at_the_debate.html). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263.md?page=18)