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NRA member/Attorney weighing in here ...

My understanding, from what I have been able to read about this case, is that one had to take the safety off before the gun could be unloaded, and the plaintiffs contended this was a design defect making the gun unreasonably unsafe.

One analogy I have heard is to a lawn mower manufacturer making a lawnmower that you could only change the blades on it while the gas-powered motor was on (which would undoubtedly make it more dangerous).

I believe the vast majority of these lawsuits against gun manufacturers are completely frivolous, but I also allow for the possibility that some guns may be poorly designed or manufactured, making them even more dangerous than they are inherently.

IMHO

Something is very fishy about this case. Note, that "12 year old "believed" that "some adult" asked him to bring the gun". Excuse me, seems like the only adult around was the baby sitter. Did he ask the kid to bring the gun? Then, obviously not knowing much about guns, he fiddled with it, and accidentally shot the kid. Just exactly whose fault is this? I can't see any guilty party here except the babysitter.

A California jury has found a firearms manufacturer partially liable

Strange article. No amount of award listed. No manufacturer listed. Doesn't tell the model of the gun. Heck, doesn't even tell us if it was a revolver or semi-automatic pistol. I assume it was a semi-auto but it doesn't tell us if a bullet was in the chamber while Babysitter Man was trying to unload it while pointing it at the boy's head (obviously, there was no other place to point it).

This reporting is just plain shoddy.

Gun manufacturers are as liable as anyone else for product manufacture lawsuits. The new law is unlikely to protect them from a defective design lawsuit.

But I have reconsidered my earlier remarks too. If the manufacturer had forced you to put the safety on 'safe' in order to reload/unload/change clips, then it would have been unsuitable for police and (I think) some target shooting competitions.

Actually, as I've thought about it, it seems to me that the family should only have a case against the babysitter. Judging by the article, he was forced to put the safety on 'fire' to unload it so there is no way he could not have known that the gun was prepared to fire. So I've decided they have no case against the manufacturer at all unless the safety on/off was somehow inadequately marked for clarity.

I'd like to hear more from you and FR's other legal eagles on the liability issues when we get an adequate report on the case's specifics.

Yeah, the present House bill would immunize gun-makers from traditional products-liability actions. Then we'd see guns with no safeties at all.

Larry Eldridge's _Trials of a Philadelphia Lawyer_, which I read in law school 30 years ago, mentioned one of his cases where a hunter's DOG shot him. He had put his rifle on safe and laid it against a fence while he crossed the fence. His dog knocked the rifle over while jumping the fence and it discharged.

The rifle was bagged by the ambulance crew. Eldridge filed suit for the hunter and the rifle was delivered to the parties' expert witnesses for disassembly. The rifle manufacturer defendant's representative suggested the rifle be placed on a white sheet before disassembly. A little speck came out of the safety when they opened it up and the rifle guy said, "Aha!"

It turned out that the safety had been jammed by some undetonated powder. The experts agreed on how the safety design made that possible, the case was settled and the safety was redesigned.

And no other hunters were injured that way.

The House bill removes all incentives for gun manufacturers to produce safe weapons.

I suppose they'll do the same for car manufacturers next.

Revolvers don't have safety switches so I'm curious why revolver makers aren't sued for such an "unsafe" design. I know manufacturers often remove useful features from products because lawyers exploit operator error. It's a shame. Our current legal system does not lend itself to making the world a better place.