J.R.LABBE: SENSE NOT COMMON IN DEBATE OVER GUN LAWS

Did the gun-rights group prevail last week, or did the gun-control folks come out on top in a lawsuit that pitted the NAACP against almost 100 firearms-industry defendants?

On paper, the gun-rights advocates won when the federal judge said that the civil-rights group failed to prove that any of the defendants had engaged in conduct that constituted a public nuisance.

In reality, this wanna-be activist judge did his damnedest in his written findings to say the firearm industry indeed has created a public nuisance.

“The NAACP has demonstrated the great harm done to the New York public by the use and threat of use of illegally obtained handguns in urban communities,” wrote Judge Jack B. Weinstein. “It also has shown that the diversion of large numbers of handguns into the secondary illegal market, and subsequently into dangerous criminal acts, could be substantially reduced through policies voluntarily adopted by manufacturers and distributors of handguns without additional legislation.”

The gun-control groups want to believe that Weinstein’s written findings, rather than his final ruling, are the ammunition they need to kill a bill before Congress to protect firearms manufacturers from being sued for damages or injuries resulting from the criminal misuse of their lawfully sold products.

“This trial helped shine the light of truth on the gun industry’s dirty little secrets,” said Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. “Now that a decision has been reached, Congress must not put gun makers and dealers above the law.”

The U.S. firearms industry is hardly “above the law,” but Horwitz and others would rather demonize gun makers than the ones who use guns to commit violent acts.

The bill before the Senate — it passed the House by a vote of 285-140 — does not bar people from filing liability lawsuits against gun makers, distributors and sellers when a product is defective or does not function as advertised.

And the much-overused claim — cited on Web sites ranging from Handgun-Free America to the Violence Policy Center — that “teddy bears are much more highly regulated than guns” is nothing but a bunch of grizzly dung.

Teddy bears are made for toddlers, who, unless they are exceptionally mentally gifted, don’t know that biting the eye off Teddy and swallowing it could be a bad thing. Hence the need for eyes that can’t be easily bitten. Consumer-safety guidelines on items made for children are logical.

Guns, on the other hand, are made for grown-ups whose cognitive skills let them understand what happens when you point one at something and pull the trigger. Slugs of lead propelled at very high speed punch holes into whatever they hit.

Common sense. Unfortunately, sense isn’t so common anymore — hence, lawsuits against tobacco companies, fast-food restaurants and gun makers.