What about a class action lawsuit against the NRA modeled after the tobacco class actions?

First, there is a Federal law that specifically exempts gun makers from civil immunity for making a dangerous product.

Second, the class action succeeded because the states proved that cigarette makers were actively concealing how dangerous their products are. In the case of guns, everyone pretty much knows how dangerous they are. If fact, people often buy them specifically for that reason.

you can still sue a gun manufacturerer if a gun is defected and you get hurt.

Essentially it would be like preventing lawsuits on Jack Daniels Distillary company due to drunk driving accidents

If they had a chance of succeeding then they would not be frivolous. Introducing an unreasonably dangerous product into the market is grounds for a lawsuit. "Unreasonably dangerous" means more dangerous than the average user would suspect. If the marketing of guns is that they protect your family from crime, and the evidence shows they are actually an affirmative danger (if), then it would be unreasonably dangerous. A lot depends on the local jury pool and of course these cases cost a lot to litigate, even if the defendant wins.

which is what the Brady suits were based on. It wasn't about winning or going to trial. The idea was to bankrupt them by getting them to have to hire extra lawyers and maybe get them to settle.

I think we confused "owner/user/victim" too much in the discussion of this topic. The user is the person who actually uses the said device- and in that case todays guns are extremely safe (you don't see many guns blowing up on their users). If it is more likely that keeping a gun inyour house will be used against you- that is not a product of a defect in the gun.

Guns are not unreasonably dangerous to use- no more than using a vaccuum cleaner or many other household items.

only paid advocates. I don't expect that they enjoy tort immunity.

the NRA doesn't manufacture guns

and let us know how it goes? How about wrongful death suits against the Brady Campaign or VPC for every home invasion resulting in death in areas with strict gun laws like DC, Chicago, USVI? How about suing head shops for drug gang violence like drive by shootings? In fact, I think Mexican citizens should be able to sue the US and Canadian drug culture for fueling their violence.

just saying things should go both ways.

Don't open doors or use arguments that can be used against you later because they will be.

several times before

The NFA has very little influence in Canada. Not many even know they exist. The majority of our gun owners are hunters who were once outraged that we had a long gun registry, and that was primarily because they either believed the government would one day confiscate their rifles or alternatively because they felt they might be mistakenly accused of a crime, if there was a gun death in their area. We abolished the registry. We have a rather low rate of gun deaths by rifles - yes some accidental, some alcohol related, some suicides, but most of our gun crime comes from weapons smuggled in from the US and sold to the criminal element. It's not particularly easy here to obtain a handgun and most people don't want one.

Advocating for loose gun laws does not make you an accessory to murder under the law. Under that theory someone could sue the ACLU for any crimes that were committed by individuals who "got off" due to civil right violations during the arrest process.

...confuse civil liability with criminal culpability. Individuals and corps have been sued (justifiably) for such things as providing an "attractive nuisance". This is where many lawsuits over deaths and injuries in unsecured and under-secured pools originate. I'm purely guessing but I think such an action would probably based in similar types of precedents. The manufacture's advertising or perhaps monetary cooperation in maybe a movie or video game may lead to some success with such a suit.

Unless the NRA actively incited violence or violated our now nearly nonexistent campaign laws, they are protected by the 1st Amendment.

of aiding and abetting crime by increasing the cool factor of weapons and/or using high powered marketing strategies to make people more paranoid.

because our crime problem are mostly by people who may or may not know the NRA exists, or that guns are even legal for the average person.
Paranoid? Are you saying self defense is a bad thing, or what's your point?

you'd have to be living under a rock. The NRA is known world wide, thanks to the American media. Ditto re the legality of guns - if you have gone to school in the US, you know about the 2nd amendment. Immigrants have to learn about US law and history to become citizens, and the illegal immigrants watch television. Your crime problem, like most crime problems anywhere involves socio-economic disparity.

What I mean by paranoia is the idea that you're better protected with multiple weapons than you are with one, or that a six shooter is not enough, you need a semi-auto handgun or semi-auto rifle to really be protected.

That is correct, and we have on the same level as Mexico. I might be underestimating the civics education of the average drug dealer or gangster, but I doubt by much.

You are projecting and making false assumptions. FWIW, the popularity of semi auto pistols in the US is fairly recent. I remember when semi autos were more Canadian and European while revolvers were US.

"The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number ofgenuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed byvoices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly evercomprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybodyreally believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on aschool he's already identified at this very moment?

How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment offame — from a national media machine that rewards them with thewall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave — whileprovoking others to try to make their mark?

A dozen more killers? A hundred? More? How can we possibly evenguess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an activenational database of the mentally ill?

And the fact is, that wouldn't even begin to address the much largerand more lethal criminal class: Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gangmembers who have spread like cancer in every community in thiscountry. Meanwhile, federal gun prosecutions have decreased by 40%— to the lowest levels in a decade.

So now, due to a declining willingness to prosecute dangerouscriminals, violent crime is increasing again for the first time in19 years! Add another hurricane, terrorist attack or some other naturalor man-made disaster, and you've got a recipe for a nationalnightmare of violence and victimization."

escalating gun violence and "be afraid of the deer hunting redneck down the street" and no less either. Since Wayne has a habit of doing his cause more harm than good, I sometimes wonder if he, and Ted Nugent, are really moles.

...have you ever seen the Kevin Costner movie No Way Out? I love movies with a twist.

...so it's a bit of an oldie. Hackman is almost always good plus I'm a Will Patton fan. He's a character.

I still like "wheel guns" but in recent years I have found that the technology involved in the manufacture of semi-auto pistols has improved considerably and they now are far more reliable than they were 20 years ago.

Keep workin' for it... we'll get it soon!

it was referring to a lawsuit vs the NRA for making gun ownership more attractive by extorting the virtues of high powered weapons.

... filmmakers, TV producers, novelists and video game producers for the same thing? After all, it seems to be speech that you are objecting to. Cool factor? Marketing strategies?

I think (I'm not sure) they've been exempted from such lawsuits through legislation. Correct me please if I'm wrong on this.

gun makers enjoy tort immunity in the US, probably because of the 2nd Amendment.

It has to do with the gun control lobby using meritless lawsuits, based on SLAPP suits, to sue them in oblivion. Basically, they sued them for the illegal actions of others. A perfect analogy would be
suing car makers and dealers for hit an runs
suing bars and distilleries for drunk drivers

law suites are legal if the manufacture or dealer violated the law. There was a successful lawsuit against Kahr because of security lapses and hired a felon on the assembly line. In the US all felons are are not allowed to touch a gun for life. That includes non violent felons.

Gun dealers sell to the general public. The gun makers therefore have no responsibility if a member of the general public decides to commit murder because they have no control over who gets the guns.

Generally Gun makers sell to Gun Distributors/Wholesalers who sell to Gun Stores who sell to civilians and police departments.

In the greater scheme of things, not particularly important, but in a court room it will make a difference.

The courts shit-canned them, one and all under then-existing laws.

Irv Pinsky's lawsuit was allowed to be filed. All the families of victims should file lawsuits against NRA because the guns used in Sandy Hook were legal. There is ample evidence in past political ads, news programs showing the NRA's relentless promotion of removing the ban and/or maintaining the legalization of the assault rifles. There is a money trail of contributions to candidates who voted to keep these weapons legal There is evidence to show the gun manufacturers also influenced laws and lawmakers with contributions directly and to the NRA. The lawsuits should focus on this. The parents should request a jury trial.

'The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.

The decision, with an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia and dissents from Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, overturned a ruling by a federal appeals court in Colorado. The appeals court had permitted a lawsuit to proceed against a Colorado town, Castle Rock, for the failure of the police to respond to a woman's pleas for help after her estranged husband violated a protective order by kidnapping their three young daughters, whom he eventually killed."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0