Tort Reform At Gunpoint

Under cover of darkness--or a relentless media focus on the Iraqi war, which amounted to the same thing--the House of Representatives recently passed a bill that made a single industry largely immune from lawsuits.

That industry is the one that makes and sells guns.

If a hospital leaves a sponge in your midsection, you can sue. If a car dealer sells you a clunker it hadn't properly inspected, you can sue. Of course, it may be that your suit will get nowhere. Witness the jurist who threw out the action by parents who argued that fast food made their kids fat, and who did it faster than you can say, "Do you want fries with that?"

But judges and juries and responsible litigants will be out of the loop and out of luck if what the National Rifle Association likes to call the "Reckless Lawsuit Pre-emption Legislation" passes the Senate. The people whose loved ones were allegedly shot by the D.C. snipers can forget about holding responsible the gun shop that was the chief enabler. Even though both the sniper suspects were legally banned from buying guns. Even though they had a Bushmaster rifle that came from a store in Tacoma, Wash. Even though federal agents couldn't find required sales records for the rifle. Even though the store is run in such a haphazard fashion that an audit can't account for more than 200 guns that were supposed to be on the premises.

"Frivolous lawsuits" is one reason Sen. Max Baucus of Montana gave for his support of what I like to call the Cover Your Butt or They'll Target It in the Next Election legislation. Is that really how easily senators can dismiss the widow of the bus driver shot in the back during the sniper spree, who was flabbergasted to discover that the gun industry may get special protections that no other business enjoys?

Like most Americans, that poor woman had no idea whom she was really dealing with. Not only does the NRA make things difficult for any elected official who doesn't go along with it; it does the same for gun manufacturers who don't toe the line. Take the case of Smith & Wesson, which made a deal with the government to adopt safety measures in exchange for an end to some lawsuits. Those measures were scarcely radical: hidden serial numbers, a trigger lock and a plan for better smart-gun technology, which allows a weapon to be fired only by authorized users. These are precisely the sort of efforts that might have led to fewer lawsuits down the road.