We Can Take On The Gun Lobby

To stop gun violence, this needs to be a priority in a Democratic Congress: Repeal the tort liability exemption that protects the gun lobby from the same fate as Big Tobacco.

The politicians who voted for that awful bill are careful to present it as "common sense" and "fair." They also like to use the hammer analogy: "If someone murders someone with a hammer, is it fair to sue the company that made the hammers?" This is several layers of bullshit, and the first is that this is an NRA talking point. It's been on their handouts for years, so naturally they share it with the politicians to whom they donated.

Second: Since when is it the job of Congress to carve out special protections for one industry in our legal system? We didn't like it when states passed damage caps on malpractice cases under the guise of keeping insurance premiums low. (It didn't work.) Why on earth is it "fair" to exempt an entire industry from being sued, except under very narrow conditions? The courts are the only real tool We The People have left, and even that right has been steadily eroded.

Go read the rest of this Think Progress piece about how lawsuits broke the tobacco industry if you want to understand what we can do to cripple the gun lobby if this law is repealed:

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