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Lawsuits Holstered?

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Shooting gun makers in the back may be falling out of fashion.

If somebody shoots somebody else with a gun, you’d think if you were going to sue anybody, you’d sue the shooter. Not people who make or sell guns for a living. Unless we’re also going to start suing baseball bat manufacturers whenever anyone gets bashed with a baseball bat.

Yet over the last several years we have been hearing about lawsuit after lawsuit against firearms manufacturers, as if they were complicit in crimes they knew nothing about. Fortunately, many courts have dismissed the lawsuits as transparent attempts by gun-control advocates to win by lawsuit what they can’t win by law.

Some lawmakers have banned these frivolous lawsuits. For example, in Georgia. The U.S. House has also passed a ban on such suits, and the Senate may follow suit.

Some of the folks pushing these lawsuits have decided to throw in the towel. Recently the Cincinnati City Council voted unanimously to drop its own lawsuit, which sought to make gun makers pay for the costs of responding to crimes in which guns are used. I guess they’re reserving their right to bring the lawsuit again if the ban in Congress doesn’t pass.

Of course, if you sell a gun to somebody you know is planning to commit a crime with it, there you have knowledge and complicity. But you can’t punish vendors every time something they sell is put to evil use. Such a principle of liability has nothing to do with holding people responsible. It’s more of a license to kill.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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