They are not .
Guns are sold only after a FBI background check. Some states have more strenuous requirements, such as a gun safety class. Guns can only be sold to people of a certain age- handguns etc to 21+. And there are other requirements.
Next you only have to insure your car if you drive it on public highways. If you go out in public with a concealed gun, you have to have a permit, which has extra checks.
Guns must also comply with enormous lists of safety regulations.
The primary way the guns are getting into the hands of criminals is by straw man sales. A “Straw man seller” buys the guns totally legally from the gun store. As you say “keep a correct and complete record of all of your S&W sales”. The straw man seller then sells the guns to criminals, in most cases illegally.
Next most common is the guns are stolen.
Third most is the guns were purchased totally legally, then the buyer becomes a criminal afterwards.
So yes, S&W could say to ‘their’ dealers “If you do not keep a correct and complete record of all of your S&W sales you will no longer be a S&W dealer.” not only could but S&W already does. Since S&W only sells to ATF registered dealers, who are required by law to keep a correct and complete record of all of gun sales. (Some number of S&W sales are sold directly to Police dept)
Guess only I can answer yes.
You fiddled around with your statistics, presumably for effect. Here’s the accurate statistic:
…the rate for blacks was 1.4 times the rate for whites. Disparities were greatest in swimming pools, with swimming pool drowning rates among blacks aged 5–19 years 5.5 times higher than those among whites in the same age group. This disparity was greatest at ages 11–12 years; at these ages, blacks drown in swimming pools at 10 times the rate of whites.
Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Fatal Unintentional Drowning Among Persons Aged ≤29 Years — United States, 1999–2010
CDC MMRW
Let’s be mindful, the manually-activated mechnical safeties on many firearms were created to prevent accidental discharge if you dropped the weapon or mishandled it while loaded. Not to “secure” it. So a number of firearms will not have those because theirs will be a passive safety mechanism (so it won’t go off w/o a deliberate trigger pull).
And yet a certain political faction is annoyingly striving to increase the number of states where that is not required.
That is part of what makes this debate such a pain – with every other right we accept there can be reasonable limits of time/place/manner. I can’t offer fresh-cut human hearts to Tlaloc, I can’t show porn on a big screen on my porch facing the street, etc. Yet there are “2A” hardliners who would have this particular one be entirely unrestricted.
Then perhaps the honorable thing to do is to excuse yourself from this debate. You don’t understand things even when they are pointed out to you.
I have explained to you, as someone in this field of business, how new firearms are transferred from manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and then customers and how regulated the business is from start to finish. Yet you keep bringing up these non-existent scenarios where manufacturers are supplying the black market. That simply isn’t happening in this country. Why are you insistent that it is?
No, that is untrue. The NRA and others want to make all states “shall issue’ which means that yes, they can check your background etc, but then, unless your background etc turns up bad shit, they 'shall issue”. They can turn you down for a reason.
CA is a “may issue” state, where some counties issue like “shall issue” and others, like Los Angeles issue only to celebrities, friends of the Sheriff or people who made large $ contributions to said Sheriffs campaign. That is fucking stupid.
I’m pretty sure JR is referring to constitutional carry laws. Which I agree are not a great idea. Licensing for carrying or using guns in public areas isn’t a crazy idea.
Trying to go back to the OP, since we have a lot of hijacks going on -
I think the most reasonable argument (not that I’m agreeing) with removal of liability protection is the incentivization for increased safety. I do believe that @Ultravires has made good points that we would be twisting our current understanding of tort and liability in order to make these suits viable, and agree with @DrDeth that the lawsuits would indeed be targeted as an effort to bankrupt or profit from firearms deaths.
Oh dear god, if only. 
One interesting point, and I’m surprised no one has brought it up is the Sandy Hook case. Specifically, the SCOTUS allowed the case Against Remington to move forward (ie back to the CT courts). I’ve included an article from NPR (since in my experience it has slightly less spin that most other US news sources).
I’m including a section of the article that I feel most directly bears on the OP and the thread for those who don’t want to read the article:
The closely watched lawsuit has survived many legal twists and turns, moving from state to federal court and back, and repeatedly escaping bids by Remington and gun owners’ groups to quash it. While the suit initially centered on a claim of negligent entrustment — or providing a gun to someone who plans to commit a crime with it — the case now hinges on how Remington marketed the gun.
The 2005 federal law that shields gun companies from liability has several exceptions — including one allowing lawsuits against a gun-maker or seller that knowingly violates state or federal laws governing how a product is sold or marketed.
In March, the Connecticut Supreme Court breathed new life into the families’ lawsuit when it ruled they can sue Remington for marketing a military-style weapon to civilians. That decision reversed a Connecticut superior court’s ruling that would have ended the case.
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up Remington’s appeal, the case will return to a lower court in Connecticut.
So in this case, there seems to be room for interpretation in terms of intent. I liked the article in that it described the evolution of the case - first (IMHO) a punitive measure against the manufacturer as we have discussed and blocked due to our cited legislation, but trying to move forward on alternative basis. Certainly, if I were a manufacturer right now I’d probably be looking into my current marketing strategies.
Modnote: This thread is about Gun Manufacturing Liability. Your post is off subject.
To all, try to stay on subject.
Modnote: Really, Swimming pool deaths?
@Sam_Stone and everyone else. Anymore off-topic strawmen like this will draw swift warnings. You all know better. Please don’t respond to off-topic derailment attempts like this, report them please.
Marketing a military weapon to the general public.
The thread is reopen, everyone try to stay on topic. Try not to attack each other.
Try not to generate another dozen flags.
But if and when someone goes off topic or attacks other poster, DON’T respond, flag it and let us handle the mess.
It’s interesting that we characterize holding the gun as the gun was designed to be held, firing the gun as it was designed to be fired, hitting someone with the bullet as the gun was designed to operate is called “intentional misuse”. People practice using it on targets shaped like people. Guns are advertised as per their suitability in shooting people with them, advertised as being useful to use against people, in a personal security fashion.
This isn’t someone clubbing a dude over the head with a 9 iron, or even stabbing someone with a steak knife. It’s using a weapon that, from day one of the design process*, was intended to be used by a person to shoot another person. Granted, the idea is for one person to defend him/herself from that other person but the use case is absolutely clear.
*The exceptions to this will be notable as guns designed for a specific non human target purpose (birds, deer, vermin etc.) and will also be notable as being used in a tiny fraction of human deaths and gun based crimes. I fully support the manufacturers of these guns to be protected from claims stemming from intentional misuse. Handguns and military style rifles… not so much.
I don’t understand this. Guns are legal. They are not legal for murder purposes. You can fire them at paper targets. You can fire them at inanimate targets. You can fire them at tasty animals during hunting season. You can fire them at people when it is in lawful self defense. You may not fire them at someone in order to murder them.
Using them for murder is therefore “intentional misuse.”
It’s simple, if I sell an object that is designed to kill humans, it is not a “misuse” to deliberately kill a human with it. I am using the object entirely within it’s design parameters, and it is functioning exactly as I designed it to do.
Good post and stayed on point.
It is designed to kill humans, in part, and only designed to kill humans for lawful reasons, but has many other purposes.
Under your theory since Ping makes a driver to hit a golf ball, it should be legally responsible if I hit a golf ball with a Ping driver inside a third grade classroom because the club functioned as intended: it hit a golf ball.