How Bernie Sanders Helped Derail a Promising Legal Fight Against Gun Violence

[riversedge]

Circulating TWEET
Mother Jones: How Bernie Sanders Helped Derail a Promising Legal Fight Against Gun Violence http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/bernie-sanders-vote-gun-immunity-black-market #p2 #gunsense #uniteblue



How Bernie Sanders Helped Derail a Promising Legal Fight Against Gun Violence

The most viable effort in decades to stem the flow of guns onto the black market ended with the immunity bill Sanders helped pass.

—Pema Levy on Mon. January 25, 2016 6:00 AM PDT
Andrew Harnik/AP

In the fall of 2005, the city of New York was preparing a mammoth lawsuit against 14 gun manufacturers and 27 distributors and dealers. The suit set out to prove that the gun industry bore a responsibility for the volume of guns illegally trafficked into the city.

..........................
"New York was a very strong case," says Jonathan Lowy, an attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence who worked on the case. "We were completely ready for trial."

But the trial never came. In October 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), granting sweeping legal immunity to the gun industry. Gun manufacturers who lobbied for the bill warned that suits like New York's were a scheme hatched by activist lawyers and judges to bankrupt the gun industry. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), ..........................

After the PLCAA passed, New York's case was thrown out. The city never got its day in court.

More than a decade after its passage, the PLCAA is at the center of a fierce debate over gun control between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. As a senator from New York in 2005, Clinton voted against the PLCAA; Sanders, then in the House of Representatives, voted for it, as he had done for an earlier iteration of the measure that failed in 2003. Recently, Clinton has accused Sanders of bowing to the National Rifle Association on this key piece of legislation. Sanders, who hails from a rural state with lax gun laws, has defended his vote as a way to protect the "small mom-and-pop gun shop" in Vermont from frivolous lawsuits.

But Sanders' argument obfuscates the true impact of his vote—namely, that the lawsuits he helped derail once represented the most viable effort in decades to stem the flow of guns onto the black market................

[PeoViejo]

1. How Hillary Clinton helped start an illegal War

that dumped enough heavy weapons in the Middle East to kill Millions of innocent Civilians.

[riversedge]

3. That old chestnnut has had a zillion threads already in this forun. Boring. But...

here is something more up to date for you.

Great T-shirts --the Human rights Campaign had some workers in Iowa yesterday......


Hillary for Iowa ?@HillaryforIA 11h11 hours ago West Des Moines, IA



HRC for HRC—stickers, signs, and #ImWithHer shirts!





Nik Roybal Retweeted
Hillary for Iowa ?@HillaryforIA 11h11 hours ago West Des Moines, IA

These shirts though. #HRC4HRC #ImWithHer
Embedded image permalink
43 retweets 110 likes




HumanRightsCampaign and 1 other Retweeted
Hillary for Iowa ?@HillaryforIA 11h11 hours ago West Des Moines, IA

One last hug with @HRC President Chad Griffin. Thanks for an incredible day of events, Marion, N Liberty, and WDM!


59 retweets 113 likes

[PeoViejo]

8. The old "That's old news" Canard...please

OK. Hillary loves Gay People. So what? This is News?

[riversedge]

15. The fact that Human Rights Campaign members where in Iowa knocking on doors for her is news. YUP

[workinclasszero]

2. WTG Bernie? SMH

[riversedge]

4. This is a very informative poster--the need to regulate guns as we do cars. I will

pass it around. Had not seen it before. Thanks.

[workinclasszero]

5. No problem

It just shows the insanity of this country that motor vehicles are so heavily regulated and yet deadly firearms designed to kill human beings have pretty much zero restrictions put on them or their ownership.

[hack89]

18. You really don't want guns regulated like cars

unless you want a licensing procedure that 95% of the population can pass and which then allows a gun owner to legally carry a gun in every state in the union. You would also have to eliminate criminal background checks - a criminal record is not an impediment to getting a drivers license.

[riversedge]

7. ]Mayor Joe Riley understands the stakes in the election. It's why he's supporting @HillaryClinton.

NYTNarrative and 92 others follow
Shoq ?@Shoq Jan 17

"Sanders called Clinton “disingenuous” and said that guns “should not be a political issue." [Really, really?] http://ow.ly/XcAd0

Hillary for SC Retweeted
Stephanie ?@FormasForever Jan 23

Mayor Joe Riley understands the stakes in the election. It's why he's supporting @HillaryClinton. #sctweets

[hack89]

17. Regulating guns like cars would be a tremendous gift to the NRA

I don't think people really understand what will actually happen if such laws were passed - it would represent a significant relaxation of gun laws.

[leftupnorth]

6. I am a gun owner and hunter. I grew up shooting and hunting.

I shot a deer both last year and this past season with my AR style 'assault weapon'.

The way I see it, both the NRA and the gun grabbers don't like Bernie, and that means he's probably got it just about right.

I hear some folks on our side talk about guns, especially AR-15s and the like, with horribly uninformed opinions.

It is frustrating for a rural liberal like myself to listen to the ignorance. It's a major turn off for me.

I'm all for more regulation of guns and how they're sold. I'm in favor of gun insurance, or treating guns like we do cars. I'm in favor of adding more items (drum magazines, for example) to the NFA list. I agree that there are too many untrained, irresponsible gun owners out there, and we should do something about that.

The fact is, there have been record numbers of guns sold in the last 7 years. Much of that spike in sales, I believe, is a fear driven response to the idea that Obama is gonna take mah gunz!

If this is what a so called 'anti-gun' president produces, we have more to worry about than what the president does.

[workinclasszero]

9. Now we get to worry about drunk gunhumpers

fucking around with their toys/deadly weapons in public and killing/maiming our kids, wifes, w/e.

January 22, 2016 1:40 pm
Woman critically injured after ‘intoxicated’ man drops gun inside movie theatre

...he dropped his gun at a Renton movie theater and it discharged.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2471453/woman-critically-injured-after-intoxicated-man-drops-gun-inside-movie-theatre/

[leftupnorth]

10. How tragic.

This is an example of an irresponsible gun owner.

I was always taught that when the drink and smoke come out, the guns go away.

[JRLeft]

16. Hell I'm a gun owner too and a member of the NRA.

I support Bernie.

[jeff47]

11. A strong case?

Yeah...I really want to see their legal argument that a manufacturer who sells a gun to a licenced federal dealer is liable when that gun is later "sold" illegally, and not by the licensed dealer.

[leftupnorth]

13. I wonder if there has ever been a lawsuit against a car maker

For selling cars in an area and that resulted in a rise in car thefts, vehicular homicide, etc.

[jeff47]

14. Not a successful one.

But the goal wasn't successful lawsuits. The goal was SLAPP lawsuits. The idea was to file so many lawsuits that somehow every gun manufacturer on the planet would just give up and never sell any guns again. Because we know Kaleshnakov is really going to be terrified by a US court ruling.

[NCTraveler]

12. K&R nt.

[riversedge]

19. This is why gun control advocates will never forgive Bernie Sanders

It is indeed a sore spot.

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This is why gun control advocates will never forgive Bernie Sanders http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/bernie-sanders-vote-gun-immunity-black-market … #gunsense #p2