Court Rules N.Y. Shooting Victim Can Sue Gun Maker, Distributor

[primavera]

99. Actually, that's not true

Property owners do have a duty to inform persons who enter their property - with or without license - of hazards, it's called premises liability law. If, for instance, you have a dangerous wild animal in your home, you are legally obliged to warn people that you have this dangerous animal on your premises and that any person entering may be harmed by it. If you set out security devices (the examples from classic tort law are bear traps and spring guns) and fail to warn people that they are present on your property, you can be sued under tort law for battery if someone comes to harm from them, even if those devices are legal. See: Bird v. Holbrook, Wilkinson v. Downton, Addie v. Dumbreck, and especially Rowland v. Christian.

The interesting legal question is not whether a homeowner has a duty to warn of hazards - that much is black letter law - but whether possession of firearms could be considered a hazard. In that respect, you're probably right that a court would be reluctant to consider mere possession of a firearm to be a hazard that required a warning. Still, with the right fact pattern, you never know. Say you kept numerous guns in your home, all fully loaded with the safeties off, just lying around your house. A child enters your home, picks one up, and shoots himself. I have no idea what the court would do, but it would be an interesting case.