Please, someone, explain this to me.

[AndyS]

In 2014 General Motors produced cars that had a defective ignition switch. That resulted in 124 deaths. It also resulted in the recall of 30 million cars worldwide, $900 million in fines plus civil settlements to those harmed by death or injury.

Every year about 150 people are killed or injured by negligent or accidental discharges of firearms*. That's when a gun 'goes off' without intent by the person holding that gun. Every year. As a result there have been no recalls of firearms, no fines and no settlements due to legal actions against firearms companies.

Every time some definable issue with an automobile, or any other consumer product, is discovered be it a defect or just current manufacturing practices immediate governmental recalls are made and the problem corrected. Not with guns. Guns are still manufactured to the same standards they were in the mid 1800s. Only a gun manufacturer can voluntarily initiate a recall of it's product. In addition, gun manufacturers, distributors, importers and sellers are protected by the Protection of Legal Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) that restricts civil recourse against any of these entities to very narrow and specific conditions.

Just about every one of these 150 deaths or injuries could be prevented with current proven technology. Referred to as Smart Gun technology it can prevent a firearm from being operated by any other than the one authorized to use it. It isn't expensive, adding perhaps $25 to the cost of the firearm and it is absolutely reliable in every conceivable situation. Yet the gun industry vehemently resists adoption and marketing of such technology to the point of death threats to any dealer who offers it to customers. In fact there is not even a requirement for a mechanical safety device on guns**.

What is wrong with us?

*I say 'about' because there aren't any compiled statistics by any agency, governmental or NGO. It's a secret because, well, guns. The numbers I postulate are gleaned from a pro-gun online magazine article based on two years of online searching news paper articles.

**Except for guns designed for a Military Request for Quote. The military, whose most basic job description is to 'tear things up and kill people' has more stringent safety requirements than the civilian market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls#Aftermath

https://www.concealedcarry.com/safety/300-negligent-discharges-comprehensive-data-science-reveals-gun-grabbers-and-gun-owners-are-both-wrong/

[Timewas]

1. No laws

The simple answer is that no government entity has the power to police defective firearms or ammunition in America—or even force gunmakers to warn consumers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission can order the recall and repair of thousands of things, from toasters to teddy bears. If a defective car needs fixing, the U.S. Department of Transportation can make it happen. The Food and Drug Administration deals with food, drugs, and cosmetics. Only one product is beyond the government’s reach when it comes to defects and safety: firearms. Not even the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can get defective guns off the market. If a gunmaker chooses to ignore a safety concern, there’s no one to stop it.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-28/how-defective-guns-became-the-only-product-that-can-t-be-recalled

[lagomorph777]

2. We can't claim to be a nation of laws if we won't fix such a glaring loophole.

[Dustlawyer]

9. To fix that you need to get the money out of our elections.

[lagomorph777]

12. To be a nation of laws we need to do that, and we need a SCROTUS...

that respects the rule of law.

[Duppers]

3. K & R

[sanatanadharma]

4. Although I am not yet convinced that guns (per se) are not the problem...

...to me it is obvious that the problem lies in the gun-humpers of America. The are the ones, the faction, the NRAterrorists who wield the 2nd amendment like their weapons to the injury of the Nation.

If no one was going to the courts to contest rational gun control laws, the 2nd would be a historical anomaly, on the books but unused.

The 2nd amendment is being used, for their own selfish desires, by individuals who lack moral compasses; no number of children bleeding out in the streets is too much for those who elevate the works of people over the people themselves.

Anyone thinking the founding fathers and 2nd amendment writers would (if they knew today) still say "Sorry, the 2nd is more important than lives", is believing that the founding fathers of the past were sociopaths as indeed these gun-religionists are today (some psychopaths).

Guns have become "GOD' for the 'odd' and the 'ugly' congregants in the church of the unrepentant idolaters.

[lagomorph777]

13. Gun-makers and gun-humpers, obviously are the problem.

But guns are their fetish and the problem can't be disassociated from them. It's a distinction without a difference.

[panader0]

15. 22 million guns sold in 2020 in the US--I'd say that's a problem--22MILLION in one year!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=15594701

[Turbineguy]

5. It's a false equivalence

A car is designed to take you from one place to another. If it kills people instead, people sue, cars get recalled and the problem gets fixed.

A gun is designed to kill people. Let's say you're a bank robber and in the course of committing a bank robbery you attempt to shoot a Guard. But the gun jams and you are arrested or worse. That's when you can sue the gun maker and get a recall going. The gun failed to do what it was intended for.

[rsdsharp]

10. There's another false equivalence.

I know I’ll get flamed for this, but in almost every instance, accidental/negligent discharges are caused, not by a defective design of the firearm, but because the idiot handling it pulled the trigger. That they may not have intended to does not make it the fault of the gun’s design.

[AndyS]

14. I hear that a lot from pro gun rights supporters and I'm sorry but they, and you, are dead wrong.

Pun intended.

So every auto accident was caused by an inattentive or reckless driver. Not the car's fault. So a 1954 Ford should be the standard that all cars should measure buy, right? Horse hockey.

Because the drivers can't be fixed we have fixed the cars as best we can to take care of them. Same with guns. It should be patently obvious to all that gun owners cannot be educated/trained/indoctrinated to treat guns for what they are: implements of death. So because we can't fix the gunners we should, at the very least, fix the guns to protect the rest of us AND FORCE GUN MANUFACTURERS, BY THE POWER OF LAW,TO ADOPT ANY NEW TECHNOLOGY THAT DOES SO.

[Straw Man]

16. You are confusing unsafe designs and unsafe behavior.

The safest car is the world can still be driven dangerously. Mitigation of blame for the operator lies in demonstrable failures of design or manufacture -- like brakes that don't work when wet or gas tanks that explode with minimal contact.

The preponderance of gun deaths and injuries are due to operator error or malign intention, not mechanical failures. What technology would protect us against that? Mind-reading chips that can discern the motivation of the wielder of the weapon?

[johnthewoodworker]

6. There is no way America will ever have effective gun laws. Our population is Trumptard heavy

and loves violent deaths, particularly from guns. If you really want to change how guns work, make it necessary to carry gun liability insurance for damages. 2nd amendment retards would go nuts.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. You can do better than the -tard suffix, which is an ableist slur.

[spanone]

7. guns are more important than lives in the good ole US of A.

[HAB911]

11. Personally

I think hanging the liability costs around the neck of gun owners is the only way to address the situation