Jeff Bingaman: “my amendment would correct one of the most obvious problems with S. 1805. In fact, what it would do is to amend S. 1805…”

“my amendment would correct one of the most obvious problems with S. 1805. In fact, what it would do is to amend S. 1805 so that the bill would do more of what its proponents claim they want to do. The proponents of S. 1805 say its purpose is to bar frivolous or junk lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers. They define these frivolous suits as situations in which the manufacturer and the dealer have done nothing wrong, but situations where although they have done nothing wrong they are being sued when a perfectly good gun, but in a perfectly legal manner, is misused by a criminal to cause damage that neither the manufacturer nor the dealer intended or could have foreseen. I have some sympathy with that concern. In my view, there ought to be some protections against frivolous cases, but S. 1805 bars much more than frivolous cases. It also bars cases where the injury is caused by an act or omission of the manufacturer or dealer where the gun was defectively designed or manufactured and where that defective design or manufacture was what caused the injury.”