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A March on Washington for Gun Control occurred
on January 26, 2013.
Photo: Elvert Barnes | FlickrCC. |
Making legal headway against
the gun industry is, generally, a Herculean task. That’s why a recent jury
decision in Milwaukee is a big deal. Badger
Guns was found guilty of participating in a straw sale, where they knowingly
sold a gun to an adult, who was purchasing it for a minor. The minor, would
go on to shoot two police officers, who had tried to apprehend him. The minor
pled guilty to attempted murder, and the man who bought him the gun pled guilty
to the straw sale, but that was back in 2009. In 2010 the officers sued the
store, and they’ve just been awarded $6 million in damages.
There are, of course, appeals
in process, because the gun industry has a vested interest in not being held
responsible for what people do with their products. In 2005, the
United States Congress passed laws that made it basically impossible to sue gun
sellers or manufacturers for the use of the weapons they provide, unless
they specifically broke a law in selling those guns.
Back in 2006, an Alaska gun
store was found not liable for selling a gun that was later used in a murder,
and nine families who suffered as a result of the Newtown shooting in 2012 are
involved in pending legislation against the company that made the gun used by
the shooter.
In a country with as
much gun violence as the United States, the gun industry should be held
responsible for their part in supplying people with weapons that, frankly, they
could never have any use for other than killing people.
But because the gun lobby is
rich and powerful, and because a vocal minority of gun owners are incredibly
paranoid, the federal government has largely given them everything they want,
which is basically total immunity, like a villain in a movie about a rogue cop.
Maybe this case will
actually stick, and establish a precedent for holding the gun industry
responsible.
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