The big picture.

[Faithless]

What is the big picture for the second amendment at this time in your opinion?

In my opinion:

+ Assault Weapon Ban sunsetted.
+ Gun manufacturers protection.
- Still got Reagans 1986 no new full auto's law.
- Despite all the rhetoric President Bush has done little pro-gun things beyond sitting on his ass. While that's something, it's not exactly magic.

It all feels like that the best the pro-gun side can manage is doing holding the tide for a few moments before more ground is whined away.

I don't know whether it's dreaming or not to hope that with a President that was meant to be better than the other guy that we could achieve more than treading water.

This isn't meant to be a whine-athon or another BUSH AND THE NRA ARE TEH EVIL rant. I don't know. I'm hoping that a new year means new progress.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

As time passes, the AWB seems less important. It really banned nothing, and just made getting certain things inconvenient.

The 1986 machine gun ban is much more important. The import bans signed by Bush the Elder and Clinton were also more important. These bans really are keeping us from owning certain weapons.

The gun manufacturers liability protection is nice, if you are a gun manufacturer. But no manufacturer has ever actually gone out of business because of lawsuits, and they were passing the cost of litigation on to consumers, so we were really paying for it anyway.

 

[Standing Wolf]

The gun manufacturers liability protection is nice, if you are a gun manufacturer. But no manufacturer has ever actually gone out of business because of lawsuits, and they were passing the cost of litigation on to consumers, so we were really paying for it anyway.

I believe one or two small manufacturers in the People's Republic of California were driven out of business by legal defense costs. That said™, you're right: one of the purposes of those "law suits" was to drive up the price of firearms.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I believe one or two small manufacturers in the People's Republic of California were driven out of business by legal defense costs.

I am not so sure about that, but I won't say you are wrong. I believe the lawsuits they were defending would not have been prevented by the legislation recently passed. I have heard it said that those suits were real product liability suits where the plaintiffs claimed the product was defective. If that is the case, then the protection recently passed would not have helped.

I suspect also those companies were on shaky financial grounds anyway and would have likely died without lawsuits.

Finally, I agree that the lawsuits have driven the costs of firearms up for the consumer. But now that the reform has been passed, why have no manufacturers lowered prices to adjust for their newfound decreased liability?

 

[rick_reno]

I can't find the company names that have been driven out of business, but did find these "references"...

"Already, several handgun manufacturers have been forced into bankruptcy because of the abusive lawsuits. "
found here http://i2i.org/article.aspx?ID=532&print=true

and this...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Baker has condemned federal government efforts to join the litigation. Meanwhile the existing lawsuits have forced several small gun companies out of business.
found here (quote is at bottom of page) http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec99/guns_12-10.html