Jeff Bingaman: “let my respond to a few points the Senator from Idaho made, and also the Senator from Alabama. The first point that the…”

“let my respond to a few points the Senator from Idaho made, and also the Senator from Alabama. The first point that the Senator made that I will respond to is the Senator from Idaho said the bill as it now stands represents longstanding principles to tort law. The quote he gave us was from Prosser and Keeton's Treatise on the Law of Torts. All who have been to law school know that Prosser on torts is the accepted authority. The quote he gave was: An actor may proceed upon the assumption that others will obey criminal law. What he failed to say, if you go on in that same paragraph, that: A defendant may still be held liable for not taking precautions for foreseeable, intentional, or criminal acts which the defendant might reasonably anticipate. The case I have been focused on was not a criminal act in the traditional sense. This was an accident. This 15-year-old boy did not intend to shoot his friend who was sitting across the room talking on the telephone. He did shoot him. He shot him in the mouth. It was accidental. But because our State legislature and virtually every State legislature in the country has said that the negligent use of a deadly weapon is a crime, then essentially they have said negligence is the same as criminal activity in this instance.”