Another article in the newspaper today about the sniper victims joining a class action suit against the Washington State gun store and Bushmaster.  I think Bushmaster's chief executive has it nailed accurately that this suit has no merit against the manufacturer.

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Here's the link:
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57168-2003Jun13.html[/url]

Silly boy, it's because of the same reason that Stanley is responsible for me smashing my finger with that death trap of a hammer of theirs (not to mention the neglegent marketing practices putting dangerous devices such as this into the public arena).

I was think about this issue since gun control groups keep trying to sue gun manufacturers.

Here is my idea but it would need a responsible group/party to administer it.

There should be a (voluntary) legal defense fund for those who wish to donate money to defend against these frivilous (?sp) lawsuits.

I would be willing to donate funds to this.

It would help to take some of the burden off of the manufacturers.

While [b]SOME[/B] manufacturers may have the financial means to fight these lawsuits, others do not or it would put them out of business - [u]which is what the anti's want![/u]

Its simply, "if we can't sue them out of business we'll ruin them financially - drive them out of business".

The tobacco suits were never about the evils of smoking... it was about a group of lawyers who looked around for a victim, and extorted money from them.

These same lawyers are responsible for the various cities suing the gun mfgs.

As far as the Bushmaster suits... I made an order from Bushmaster, and specifically asked how can I help, how can I contribute to their defense.  They said simply, Thank you, but you can help by continuing to buy our products.

Screw this defensive posture.  Any way to sue the ANTIs out of business?  I'd contribute to that.

Well, you got the right idea and your heart is in the right place, but its probably not worth the effort to volunteer the money, because you have to track the money etc. Defending yourself against these anti-gunners who are using their billions of dollars from the tobacco lawsuits to finance themselves is probably a lot like you personally trying to hold back a tidal wave. It is enormously expensive. Here in L.A. Calif, to get a transcript of a some court precedings, costs something like $1.25 per page. If there is 500 pages, your talking $750, and you haven't included lawyers' time. The trial lawyers have way too much power over the rest of us in their quest to make money. Some it is deserved and some not.

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Now that's good!  I can't tell you how many times I missed the nail and smashed my thumb instead.[smash]

IIRC, Bushmaster has a place to make a donation on their web page.

The tobacco and gun industries are entirely different animals. The former generates $28 billion a year in U.S. sales. The entire gun industry only generates $2 billion, with no single company comprising a particulalry large percentage of that amount.

That's one reason why lawsuits against gun manufacturers haven't been as succesful as against tobacco – there's not enough money in it to attract the top legal talent. Thank God for small businesses!

No, the difference is that tobacco companies did things like add extra addictive ingredients on purpose, attempt to hide to some extent addictive properties for as long as they could, etc, etc.  There is zip, zilch, zero of anything even remotely similar going on with the gun industry...  Which is why the gun lawsuits have been failing, and why the fast food lawsuits are/will be failing miserably as well.  The tobacco industry thing was entirely unique, at least as far as I know...