* Forwarded (from: PA-RKBA) by Roy J. Tellason using timEd 1.10.y2k.
* Originally from Joe Pyrdek (1:270/615.77) to All.
* Original dated: Thu Jan 02, 10:35

Organization: Edinboro University of PA
From: Joe Pyrdek 
Subject: PA-RKBA! Reason behind the legal actions of anti-gunners?

Gun Victims' Silver Bullet?

The new secret weapon in gun litigation.

Two years ago, a 13-year-old Florida boy shot his sixth-grade teacher Barry
Grunow to death on the last day of school. The story had all the makings of
a great lawsuit: violence, tragedy, and social ills ranging from cheap guns
to bad parenting. But the way this case and dozens of other like it is
actually playing out in the courts involves something much more mundane:
product liability insurance. 

The Grunow case represents a new tactic for gun opponents, a strategy that
involves scaring insurance companies away from cheap, dangerous guns. The
Grunow case did not end up costing the gun businesses much; it was the
insurance companies who got hit. And the insurance industry is too smart to
pick up the tab for everyone else's mistakes. They are instead raising
rates or refusing to take on or insure some gun businesses.

Disreputable gun businesses pay dearly-by paying premiums four or even
eight times as high as they paid a few years ago, if they can get insurance
at all. Where they can't, they will likely be forced out of business, which
is OK, too. It's taken decades for suits against the gun industry to become
this sophisticated and successful. When shooting victims first started
suing, they went after the manufacturers. But even when they won, they got
no money. Tom McDermott was one of the lawyers who worked on the first big
successful case against the industry, Hamilton v. Accu-Tek.

In Hamilton, the lawyers managed to prove a novel theory: that the industry
tightly controlled all aspects of its product while turning a blind eye on
who bought the guns. The jury sorted out, company by company, who had been
reckless. Not surprisingly, it was the makers of Saturday Night Specials-
poorly made guns selling for $35-$150, which frequently ended up in the
hands of criminals-who were most culpable. This Brooklyn federal case
(though it was eventually overturned) opened the floodgates for the next
wave of gun litigation: negligent distribution claims-suits attacking the
way guns are sold and the industry's habit of overselling to areas prone to
crime or gun smuggling.

Holladay's insurance let those companies produce guns at historically low
prices. It was his cheap insurance and the sloppy insurance policies of
others in the trade that fueled a bonanza in handgun sales that peaked at
just over 2 million a year in 1993. The dozens of lawsuits by individuals
and municipalities wending their way through the courts have already had
their effect. The gun industry does its damage in dramatic, quick
incidents. These lawyers do theirs in slow-motion assaults on the economics
of the industry. Even without a dramatic courtroom victory-though one may
still be coming-they have helped drive handgun sales to roughly half their
early 1990s peak. It's certainly nothing flashy, but product liability
insurance is turning out to be an effective weapon against the gun
industry. 

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2075714

"Our Rights are not what's wrong in Pennsylvania"

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania guarantees your right
to bear arms in Article 1 Section 21: "The right of Citizens to bear
arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."

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