In Alaska, a Showdown of Lawyers, Guns, and Bush-Era Firearms Law(triple barf alert)

theatlantic.com ^ | 5 March, 2012 | Andrew Cohen

[marktwain]

Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Alaska heard argument in an extraordinary case about gun control, federalism, and so-called "tort reform." At the heart of Kim v. Coxe is the question of how state judges ought to apply a Bush-era law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was designed and enacted by Congress to protect gun manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits and liability for crimes committed with their weapons.

When the Alaskan high court (right now it includes only four justices) issues its ruling, it will represent the first time a state supreme court was weighed in on the federal statute. The case has drawn the attention of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, and gun rights advocates, and has even generated an intervention from the Justice Department, whose federal lawyers are defending the constitutionality of the 2005 statute.

The justices will be mulling it over at a politically auspicious time. The legislators who support the Arms Act, a weighty example of federal intrusion into traditional state matters, are many of the same politicians who are desperately opposed to the Affordable Care Act. The same folks crusading for states' rights and individual responsibilities are the same ones who, through the Arms Act, want to keep gun-liability issues away from state jurors.

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No matter what the Alaska Supreme Court decides, it seems clear the case will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Who knows what the justices in Washington will do (or not do)? But this much we already know: When it comes to guns, and gun control, and jury verdicts, and the age-old conservative complaint about intrusive federal power into local matters, Kim v. Coxe is proof that some politicians only trust "the people" so far.

[marktwain]

The writter is clearly a "Progressive" who wants more federal control. In the very first sentence, he refers to "their" guns, as if manufacturers and retailers control the firearms after they have left their premises.

He totally ignores that one of the purposes of the Arms Act was to protect the Second Amendment of the Constitution. It may be a "traditional state matter" since the 1960s to use tort law to attack constutional rights, but it is clearly not a constitutional one.

As is common with statists, he deliberately equates the use of federal power to restrain the states from unconstitutional activity with the use of federal power to unconstitutionaly restrain the states.

[RitchieAprile]

if andy weren’t a progressive, would he be getting published in the atlantic? No, and neither would he
be getting published in utne reader, new republic,
the nation or the other liberal dino media.

[Carriage Hill]

Gun control in Alaska? That’s gonna go over “like a fart in church”.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Gun control in Alaska? That’s gonna go over “like a fart in church”.

The facts of the case (as stated in the article, not the posted excerpt) sound pretty bad for the dealer. If the case is allowed to go to a jury (it never did, because it was dismissed under the federal act), there might be a plaintiff's verdict, even in Alaska.