"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Guns are Bad

by Lee

The Ninth Circus is at it again.

In a decision that could jump-start a gun debate on Capitol Hill, a federal appeals court has reinstated a wrongful death lawsuit against the gun industry.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based Ninth U-S Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a case that was tossed out in 2001. It had been filed against gun manufacturers and distributors whose weapons were used by a white supremacist who wounded three children at a Jewish day care and killed a postal worker. Buford Furrow said he intended to send a “wake-up call to America to kill Jews.”

Survivors claim weapons companies made more firearms than legal purchasers could buy and knowingly facilitated an underground illegal gun market.

The House has already passed a bill that protects the gun industry from such suits and President Bush has said he would sign it—but Senate Democrats have threatened to filibuster

If Buford Furrow had driven a car through the wall of the Jewish day care center and killed a bunch of kids, would there be a lawsuit against the vehicle industry?  Possibly, but it damn sure wouldn’t be upheld by a federal appeals court.  This is yet another case that is going to have to go to SCOTUS to be shot down, like so many of the Ninth’s decisions are.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:  Proudly upholding nine of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights.

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