Do you really think that hold gun manufacturers liable will do anything significant to reduce the level of gun fatalities????????
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>In a word, yes.

Here we obviously disagree. Unless the threat of lawsuits drives so many out of business that they just won't be available. Again assuming that there is a legimate purpose served by gun ownership, I'm not sure that would be a good thing.


But that wasn't really my point. My point is why should this one particular industry be inoculated against lawsuits?

That's a valid point and maybe it's my fault for missing it. I actually agree with you on this. I thought that your emphasis on the number of gun deaths was a commentary on the validity of liability lawsuits against gun manufacturers. I think you feel they are valid (correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption). My opinion is that the manufacturer of any item should not be held liable for the illegal misuse of its product.

I'm 90% convinced that they should also not be held liable for the negligent use of their product. OTOH, concepts like "attractive nuisance" (not putting a fence around your pool to protect against your neighbor's child falling in) might be applicable here. So too might the (infamous????) McDonald's lawsuit where there was a known problem with their coffee (it was significantly hotter than it "needed" to be and they knew it could cause serious burns) yet they never reduced the temperature.

If the case could be made that reasonable precautions in manufacture could have prevented the incident, I would be willing to accept a liability judgement. I'm not sure that's going to happen, but I'm willing to suspend judgement.