Justices wrestle with gun-maker responsibility
             In San Francisco the California Supreme court is considering a landmark gun liability case. The landmark case is whether to hold gun makers responsible for harm their products cause. The court has heard and watched negligence lawsuits against the manufacturer of a semiautomatic assault weapon that was used in the killing and wounding of 14 people during a rampage in a San Francisco high-rise in 1993. The courts decision on whether to allow the lawsuit to proceed will also help with other lawsuits pending in many other places around California. Gun makers fear that a loss in this case could make them vulnerable as the tobacco industry in lawsuits by victims. Some of the justices search for a way to hold the gun makers somewhat responsible. They are saying that the negligently promoted and sold the weapon, moreover it would also have to find that the negligence caused the mayhem. The 1st District Court of Appeal decided in September 1999 the lawsuit should be upheld because they had reason to believe that they "had substantial reason to foresee that many of those whom it made the TEC-DC9 available would criminally misuse it to kill and injure others." They said they deliberately targeted the marketing of the persons attracted to or associated with violence.
             As a business your job is to put out the best and most desirable product you can possibly think of. What these gun makers do is no different from what other companies do. What is unethical about what the courts are doing to these gun makers is not right. They are putting the blame onto them and saying there the reason why these people where killed. The families of the victims are the same way, saying that if the manufacturers wouldn't have put these guns out they wouldn't have a family member who was killed. Which is true, but at the same time one has to realize that the gun makers don't hav...