Congress Passes "Gun Industry Shield"

[usmarine0352_2005]

When Is Bush Going To Sign?

Does anyone know when President Bush is going to sign this legislation?

 

[RealGun]

This may be news to you; but gun owners who don't use a lock ARE ALREADY subject to civil liability in many states. Even gun owners who USE a lock are subject to civil liability in some states right now.

All that section does is protect gun owners who make some attempt to be responsible. It isn't onerous at all and is actually a plus. - BR

Okay, let's review. When would someone want to use a lock? What is the downside?

Correct me if I am wrong, but ultimately one would not have lawsuit insurance unless using a lock, at least in States that already have a lock law. If true, I think that is harrasing gun ownership, a disincentive to own guns or to keep them ready for self defense use.

Ultimately all of these things are controlled by insurance companies.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Correct me if I am wrong, but ultimately one would not have lawsuit insurance unless using a lock, at least in States that already have a lock law. If true, I think that is harrasing gun ownership, a disincentive to own guns or to keep them ready for self defense use.

RealGun, I don't understand the point you are attempting to make. So let me just restate my point since maybe it wasn't clear.

In almost any state, you can be sued in civil court if someone steals your gun and commits a crime with it. It may not be successful; but you will go to court and spend cash on lawyers unless that state has its own legislation protecting gunowners. In some states, you can be sued even if you used a gunlock. All this provision does is say that if you take some steps to secure your firearms with a gunlock, safe, etc., you are immune from such lawsuits.

That is a good thing, not a bad thing.

 

[RealGun]

All this provision does is say that if you take some steps to secure your firearms with a gunlock, safe, etc., you are immune from such lawsuits.

My point is that either now or in the future, if you do not use a gun lock, you will find that your insurance does not cover liability for that. The legislation both enables prosecution and gives insurance companies a new excuse to provide an exclusion on policies. In effect, it says that keeping a weapon ready for effective and timely self defense is NOT a normal condition in a household.

 

[pcf]

My point is that either now or in the future, if you do not use a gun lock, you will find that your insurance does not cover liability for that.

Provide liability coverage for what exactly? How many homeowner or renter policies cover third party criminal acts committed with stolen firearms? Can you name any insurance policies that will provide coverage? I can't think of many, and most of those are specialized policies. So most people go from no liability coverage, to no need for coverage. That's rough.

The legislation both enables prosecution and gives insurance companies a new excuse to provide an exclusion on policies.

Enables prosecution how? No existing state storage laws were over written, changed, or bolstered.

In effect, it says that keeping a weapon ready for effective and timely self defense is NOT a normal condition in a household.

Your state determines how you should store firearms, with CAP and firearm storage laws.

 

[RealGun]

How many homeowner or renter policies cover third party criminal acts committed with stolen firearms?

A trigger lock is a for-the-children, feel good device. It has little to do with stolen firearms. What a joke that would be. Have you seen these trigger locks? How clever would one have to be to remove it? An integrated lock, disabling the gun, as on my 1911, would be a more conclusive device, but it has the simplest form of miniature key.

If the law was going to interfere with my gun ownership, mandatory bedside safes would have made more sense. At any other time, a loaded weapon or loaded clip near the gun would be on my body or in a locked bathroom with me.

The insurance concern would be in reference to worst case scenario accidents or incidents with loaded guns in a household.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Enables prosecution how? No existing state storage laws were over written, changed, or bolstered.

I wouldn't mind hearing that question answered either. I think your assessment of this law is way, way off.

If the law was going to interfere with my gun ownership, mandatory bedside safes would have made more sense.

How is a law offering you a shield from lawsuits for things you didn't do "interfering with your gun ownership"?

Seriously, who took the normal THR and replaced it with bizarro THR?

 

[RealGun]

I wouldn't mind hearing that question answered either. I think your assessment of this law is way, way off.



How is a law offering you a shield from lawsuits for things you didn't do "interfering with your gun ownership"?

Seriously, who took the normal THR and replaced it with bizarro THR?

If the the trigger lock provision was so innocuous, why was it believed necessary?

 

[Deavis]

^^^ It's for the children, come on... You know that already.

 

[wahsben]

If every gun group had gotten behind HR 800 instead of S.397 there is a very good chance that it would have passed instead. We have to stop compromising. It has cost us alot and the anti-gun groups do no compromising whatsoever. You can bet that the amendments will be used against us. The Attorney General here in Mass. has screwed gun owners with his interpretations of the laws and the same thing will most likely happen with this. Go to the GOA website today and read what they have to say about the passage of S 397, it makes sense. If these amendments mean nothing as some have stated here than why have them in the legislation at all? Why because our corroupt politicians will use them as they see fit to negatively impact all gun owners at some point. It truely saddens me that with all gun owners have had to put up with because of the likes of Brady, the VPC, feinstein, kennnedy, schumer and the rest of their ilk that there are some still willing to compromise.

 

[Kharn]

If these amendments mean nothing as some have stated here than why have them in the legislation at all?

Because politics is all about style over substance. And there's about 14 soft Republicans in the Senate that are off the reservation and doing their own thing.

Kharn

 

[Silver Bullet]

If these amendments mean nothing as some have stated here than why have them in the legislation at all?

I think the Republicans allowed them in because 1) they were nearly meaningless, and 2) they were seen as possibly necessary to get enough votes from the fence-sitters.

I think the Democrats wanted them in to try and save face. A week after the Senate vote I saw a newspaper article where someone claimed that the amendments were a great victory, that the wily Democrats sneaked them into the bill while the Republicans were busy celebrating passage of the main provision. Anyone who followed along on the C-Span thread in real-time (I think over at The Firing Line, a thread started I think by Bartholomew Roberts) was able to see that the amendments were voted in before the final vote, and that they certainly weren't "sneaked" in.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

If these amendments mean nothing as some have stated here than why have them in the legislation at all?

Because there are only 55 Republican Senators and 7 of them voted against this bill last time. That means you now have only 48 votes in a place where you need 60 to beat filibuster and 50 to pass the legislation.

The only way to do that is to cut deals with 12 Senators to get on board. What GOA is effectively arguing is that there were 12 Senators out there who would have done the deal for even less than these guys did. I don't know that this is true and based on the floor debates, I sure have no idea who those Senators might be. I understand you can't always out the people you are working with in politics; but if GOA knows of 12 Senators who would have accepted even less than they got I can't imagine why they didn't act on it or share that information with others.

The legislation is in there because it is what some Senators demanded in exchange for their support of this bill. If you want a no-compromise bill like the GOA suggested, then your next opportunity to replace 12 moderate/anti-gun Senators with 12 pro-gun Senators in 2006. However, our victory of adding 5 pro-gun seats in the Senate in 2005 is probably the biggest surge I've seen in 15 years. Even if we can duplicate that same surge for the next three elections, it will be 2010 before we have enough Senators for a "no compromise" bill (assuming we don't lose any we already have of course).

How many gun companies will be around if the Brady's get that many more years to frivolously sue gun manufacturers, distributors, and dealers?

 

[RealGun]

I think the truth is that the spider is weaving his web. The absence of a gun lock is easier to prove than material criminal negligence. If the law expects that gun owners will own a lock, it follows that they would want locks included with a gun purchase. Then the mere record of purchase of a gun is prima facie evidence that a gun owner could have or should have used a lock. Providing immunity really means that owners of older weapons must go out and buy a lock and save evidence that they did so. The provision of immunity comes very close to explicitly requiring use of the locks. It clearly addresses that many homes contain loaded weapons ready for use, and gun grabbers would love to find a way to make those weapons useless. The disingenuous argument will always be that children will be safer. The overall desire is to dictate whether people owns guns, how they own them, and how or whether they use them. We already know that "sporting purposes" is the desired limit of use. If only used for sporting purposes, there can't be an argument why a stored gun should be loaded or not locked (disabled). To me, this amendment means that the right of self defense is under attack. At the same time, I would not diminish the importance of safety. The problem is that storage of my guns within my property is no ones business.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

There is a certain amount of pessimism inherent in gun ownership; but you take the cake!

 

[RealGun]

I don't get why you seem to be such an apologist for these amendments. Suddenly there is no concern for where these laws are ultimately headed. If they aren't pro-gun, then I believe they would be suspect of being anti-gun. I am going to be resistant to any gun control legislation that provides no advantage to me as a gun owner. Protecting me from civil liability is baloney. Instead of being liable for negligence, I am now liable for a token requirement. It reminds me a bit of a concealment license making me liable for failure to conceal, even if intending to conceal. It's entrapment with an underlying hostility to gun ownership.

What the trigger lock amendment does is federally endorse those State laws that are already in place. It also claims the issue as a matter of interstate commerce.

It would be helpful if there was some report of how the existing trigger lock laws had been applied in cases at a State level.

 

[RealGun]

Because there are only 55 Republican Senators and 7 of them voted against this bill last time. That means you now have only 48 votes in a place where you need 60 to beat filibuster and 50 to pass the legislation.

The only way to do that is to cut deals with 12 Senators to get on board.

The clean S. 397 bill from Sen. Craig had 61 cosponsors. Where is a deal necessary with those numbers? It passed in amended form with 65 votes.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Apologist would suggest there is something to apologize for... I don't see that at all. I see minor concessions that do not hurt my interests at all in exchange for a large victory.

Protecting me from civil liability is baloney. Instead of being liable for negligence, I am now liable for a token requirement.

I don't know how to phrase this in a more simple way; but under this law you have NO ADDITIONAL LIABILITY THAT YOU DID NOT ALREADY HAVE BEFORE THIS LAW? Clear enough? Nothing in the law says "OK, now you will have more liability".

All of your future doomsday scenarios are just that - future. They can only happen if we lose power and if we lose power, they are going to happen regardless of whether these compromises were made or not. If the antis ever get the votes to pass such legislation, they aren't going to say "Wait, we should do a study first." They didn't need mandatory sales of locking devices in Australia before they could enact ridiculous laws and they won't need that here.

This bill is a win, a huge win at that. I simply can't believe the number of people crying in their beer over a victory that is quite simply huge. Here are just a few things this bill has doen for gun owners:

1) Shield manufacturers, distributors, dealers and even gun owners from frivolous lawsuits for criminal acts committed by third parties
http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2005/10/more_on_s397.php

2) Specifically restates Congress's intent that the Second Amendment is an individual right.

3) Specifically states Congress's reasoning that this action is required by the 14th Amendment as well. Think that might come in handy in a future SCOTUS battle?
http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2005/10/gun_mfr_liabili.php

The clean S. 397 bill from Sen. Craig had 61 cosponsors. Where is a deal necessary with those numbers? It passed in amended form with 65 votes.

Yeah? Tom Daschle was a co-sponsor of S.1805 last year. I guess that should have been a done deal with no problems and yet it didn't play out that way did it? Not everybody who signs on as a co-sponsor is necessarily hopeful that your bill will pass. They may just be looking for political coverage for the backstabbing they plan to give you in the future.

Let's take a look at those 61 sponsors and see how many of them voted to extend the assault weapons ban last year during the amendment to S.1805:
Sue Collins, Mark Pryor, Blanche Lincoln, George Voinovich, Olympia Snowe, John Rockefeller, Robert Byrd - I guess I could go on looking for more matches; but I think this makes the point adequately. These people are not our buddies, yet they cosponsored and voted for S.397 this year after loading it with poison pills last year. Why do you think that is? Sudden change of heart? Think they would have accepted a clean S.397 just because they signed on as co-sponsor?

 

[wahsben]

I hear too many excuses. The majority of Democrats if not all of them know that gun owners were at least partially responsible for their defeat in the last couple of elections. Also the RINO's know this too and therefore I doubt that there would have been enough resistance to HR 800 to stop it because there would very likely have been some Democrats that would have voted for it too.
These amendments may not affect you now but in the future it is almost quaranteed they will. Also they may not affect you but if they affect anyone it is wrong. As I said in my earlier post if every single gun group had gotten behind HR 800 and let their reps and senators know it I would be willing to bet it would pass both the house and senate clean. We have the truth on our side and I believe we outnumber the staunch anti-gunners so people stop making excuses and compromises and stand up for your rights!

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Also the RINO's know this too and therefore I doubt that there would have been enough resistance to HR 800 to stop it because there would very likely have been some Democrats that would have voted for it too.

Unfortunately, your speculation doesn't pass legislation. How about naming the 60 Senators you believe would have supported this legislation as a clean bill or accepted H.R. 800 as a substitute?

These amendments may not affect you now but in the future it is almost quaranteed they will.

On the one hand, you are telling me we had enough power that we didn't have to compromise and could have gotten everything we wanted without giving anything away. Then in the very next breath, you are telling me it is now inevitable we will lose that power and be forced to give up even more in the future. See any contradictions there?

People don't compromise because they like to. They compromise because they have to. I can name a lot of anti-gun Senators who voted against this bill as S.1805 and supported poison pill amendments for it. Five of them are gone; but a lot more are still there - if we have the power you seem to be suggesting then how would you explain that?

 

[pcf]

Good, Fast and Cheap. When it comes to gunsmiths you can have two of the above, but don't expect the third. In the this respect Legislators and special interest legislation are the same.

Good and Fast, but it going to cost money. The fast food industry got tort reform passed this year. When gunowners have $100 million to blow every year, we can hedge our bets on both sides and get whatever we want.

Good and Cheap, it's what you have to do when you have little money. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, falls into this category. The NRA got good legislation passed on little money.

GOA talks a big talk, but has no logical solutions. H.R.800 wouldn't have gotten anywhere: No Money and No Time. If I'm wrong, please tell me how we could have gotten H.R.800 passed in less than 40 business days?

 

[RealGun]

Apologist would suggest there is something to apologize for... I don't see that at all. I see minor concessions that do not hurt my interests at all in exchange for a large victory.

As long as it is not the final cut, death by 1000 cuts is okay. I don't accept that HR800 could not have prevailed. I think NRA interfered and called off Marilyn Musgrave and her 2nd Amendment Caucus. Ron Paul, by the way, favored HR800.

 

[wahsben]

Bartholomew go read the latest GOA statement about the legislation. Also there is no contradiction you and others stated that the amendments did not affect them and I made the statement that because of the amendments in S 397 that they do affect you and others. I was talking about HR 800 first than S 397. Read all that I wrote not just parts of it. No, compromise is not always neccesary but if you keep compromising the anti gun groups keep winning a little at a time. As I said before too many excuses. First do the no compromise than if that does not work compromise. Too many people give it up right away.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

As long as it is not the final cut, death by 1000 cuts is okay.

First, it would take a lot more than a thousand such "cuts" before we were anywhere near death; but I think you made an excellent analogy here.

We got a couple of minor scratches, treatable with band-aids and in return we lopped off a chunk of our opponent's limb. Personally, I feel pretty good about which side is going to come out of this ahead if "death of a thousand cuts" is the strategy the antis are pursuing here.

Bartholomew go read the latest GOA statement about the legislation.

I've read it and I haven't seen GOA suggesting which Senators were willing to do the deal for less but refused to do so because the NRA just caved in and gave them more than they wanted.

if you keep compromising the anti gun groups keep winning a little at a time.

To follow up on RealGun's excellent analogy, I would like to lop off your left arm. I realize this is probably not acceptable to you but given my legislative power, I am going to get to take off some chunk of your limb. How about we compromise and you can scratch me as hard as you can with your fingernails in exchange? Keep me compromising like that and you'll win a little at a time, right?

 

[Silver Bullet]

Good one.