gun law

Check out Professor Sebok's argument on why U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein's recent ruling in NAACP v. Acusport, Inc. et al., while dismissing the case for lack of standing, may have created a "raodmap" for future suits against the gun industry.

The NAACP may have lost this battle, with the dismissal of its suit, but it nevertheless made significant progress in the war to make gun manufacturers liable for gun violence. This progress is largely due to Judge Weinstein's decision to allow the case to go forward to the discovery stage.

In discovery, never-before-gathered, and never-before-analyzed data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the defendant industries was obtained. Judge Weinstein's opinion both discusses, and - in a 13-page appendix - collects that data.

The data is damning, for three reasons. First, it shows that there are a handful of retailers who are "bad apples" in that they are supplying a disproportionate share of the guns used in crimes. Second, it shows that the industry could have done something about these dealers. But, in fact, the industry has, in fact, done virtually nothing on this score- and certainly had not implemented any of the common sense solutions the complaint in the suit outlines.

much more in the essay...