Posted on 09/25/2002 7:15:55 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
California Gov. Gray Davis signed a package of new gun control bills Wednesday, including the first state law in the nation to strip gunmakers of a key legal shield against liability lawsuits brought by victims of gun violence.
"No industry should be allowed to hide from its own harmful conduct, and except for gun manufacturers, no industry is," Davis said in a statement. "Current laws shield a gun manufacturer from its own negligence. These new laws strip away that shield."
Davis, a Democrat who faces reelection in November, had previously vowed to go slow on new gun control legislation after signing a raft of gun control measures during his first year in office.
But he said Wednesday that the new laws were an important step toward making California's gun safety laws -- already the toughest in the nation -- even stronger.
"A LEGAL EARTHQUAKE"
Gun control advocates hailed the new laws as a "legal earthquake" for the gun industry, which has come under legal attack in recent years by plaintiffs seeking to blame it for America's epidemic of gun violence.
"Gun makers are going to face judgement day," said Luis Tolley, California spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
"They will no longer be able to hide from the courts and escape legal accountability when they engage in dangerous and irresponsible conduct that hurts and kills people."
The centerpiece of Wednesday's legislation was a bill repealing a 1983 state law which has protected gun makers against certain liability claims for damage caused by criminals wielding their weapons.
Spurred by a lawsuit brought by survivors of a 1993 San Francisco office massacre, in which a gunman murdered eight people with a TEC-9 assault pistol, Davis' repeal overrides a 2001 decision by California's state Supreme Court which upheld the legality of the 1983 immunity law.
Gun control advocates had accused the maker of the TEC-9, Miami-based Navegar, Inc., with criminal negligence, saying it had manufactured and marketed the weapon specifically to appeal to potential killers by touting its "fingerprint resistance" and massive firepower.
A HIGHER STANDARD?
Gun manufacturers, who lobbied hard against the California bill, say they are already subject to existing product liability laws covering everything from defective products to negligent sales practices.
Now, they say, they will be held to a higher standard than other manufacturing industries -- liable for criminal misuse of legal products that are not in themselves defective.
"Some products, knives and firearms for example, must by their very nature be dangerous in order to function. The mere fact of injury does not entitle the injured person to recover from the manufacturer," Lawrence Keane, general counsel of the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, said in a recent letter to Davis urging him not to override the 1983 shield law.
"Repealing (the law) will result in California courts being flooded with exactly the kinds of cases the statute was intended to prevent -- lawsuits seeking to (hold) manufacturers of legal, non-defective firearms responsible for criminal shootings."
Other elements of the gun control package signed Wednesday included a law which adds city attorneys to the list of officials who have access to handgun registration information compiled by the Department of Justice.
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
SEC. 9. A bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts may not be passed.
wanna watch the demo's, homo's, n mexicans follow him over the cliff....
then all my tax dollars will have been worth it...
Make them pay for their communism. Take your next vacation somewhere in Red Nation - not at Disney. And cut Hollyweird's profitability by not going to the movies nor buying CDs. Eat Florida citrus rather than Kalifornia's.
Soon a Mafia-type organization would spring up to run the "business". Then you WOULD have lawless gangs everywhere armed to the teeth, while the law-abiding sheeple cowered in their homes. The leftists would be begged to "protect" the sheeple from guns. They would respond by making it a felony to use a gun to defend yourself or your family from an attacker for any reason. Then all the defender's property would be forfeit to the state coffers, to be redistributed to those mafia-type buddies of the leftists.
Yep! The pinkos have a plan to subjugate the poorly educated sheeple. What's sad is that most of them never can be made to see what's coming.
If anyone doubts this possibility, this is now current law in the UK.
"If you have not a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." -- Jesus Christ.
Brady will also face judgement day and face all those who were killed because they were unarmed thanks to her. Innocent blood is on HER hands.
Then swimming pool manufacturers kill more people than gun makers, if anyone is counting. Why not go after the product that kills the most first, and don't worry about the guns. The right to bear arms, remember?
I hope Davis hangs at the voting booths for this. Terrorists know exactly where to go to open fire on groups of innocent people. They know no one is armed. Ca. is setting itself up for a possible slaughter.
If terrorists want sitting ducks, California is the place to go.
Very astute. Few people realize that the Left is, indeed, a party of thugs. These socialist's, through State legal machinery, steal from the public and enrich themselves.
Looks like he broke another vow. This guy is the California Clinton.
In a year, the only way you'll be able to buy a gun in California is out of the back of a van.
But there will be plenty of these vans, so prices will probably be lower than they are now.
Score another victory for the Crime Lobby and its supplicants.
What conduct is that, exactly? They don't use the guns. They don't make unsafe or defective guns. They don't encourage the misuse of their product or lead people around by the hand to ensure that the product isn't misused. What conduct do they engage in that is "dangerous and irresponsible"?
As I see it, they make a tool. And, much like any other tool, it can be abused, damaged, neglected, or used for nefarious purposes. But that says a lot more about the idiot behind the trigger than it does the tool, does it not?
Oh, wait! I forgot I was addressing these remarks to people who already have their minds made up. Logic and common sense have no place in this discourse! What COULD I have been thinking!!??
Put a warning label on the gun that says "Not intended to be used for crimminal activity."
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