Thông thường thì nhà sản xuất súng đạn tảo thoát trách nhiệm dân sự khi súng đạn họ sản xuất đem dùng vào các sinh hoạt phạm pháp, vì toà án phán rằng tội ác không được dự tính khi sản xuất súng ống và nhà sản xuất này không thể kiểm soát cách sử dụng cuả sản phẩm họ cung cấp. Toà án liên bang vẫn phần nào đối nghịch với các đạo luật kiểm soát/kiềm chế súng đạn, khi họ theo đuổi bảo vệ quyền hiến định sử dụng súng ống, do đó vẫn tìm cách miễn trách nhà sản xuất khi súng đạn cung cấp gây thương tích cho người bàng quan.
Trên thực tế, hơn hai triệu án mạn hằng năm đều được thực hiện bằng súng đạn, và một số súng ống tác chiến tân kỳ lại đước tích cực quảng bá nhằm cung cấp băng đảng tội ác, vì giới này có khả năng mãi bản. Như vậy, nhà sản xuất súng đạn đã “nối súng cho giặc”, nên phải có [chăng?] “trọng trách” bồi thường về mặt trách nhiệm dân sự thay thế cho kẻ gây tội phạm.
George Nation, professor of law and business at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., argues in the April issue of the Baylor Law Review that manufacturers of guns should be required to bear vicarious financial liability for the harm suffered by innocent bystanders who have been injured by the criminal use of their products.
“Traditionally, gun manufacturers have escaped responsibility when it comes to the criminal use of their products,” says Nation. “The legal system essentially presumes that criminal activity is not to be expected and that manufacturers have no control over the use of their products.”
“But with more than two million handgun-related crimes each year, and some gun advertising clearly aimed at criminal users, this traditional presumption is at odds with reality,” he adds.
According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 68% of all murders reported to police in 2006 were committed with a firearm. Statistics from The Center for Disease Control sound a similar warning; the center estimated the number of gun-related homicides in the U.S. to be well over 11,000 in 2005.
High courts continue handing down contradictory rulings on the financial liability of gun manufacturers. Just in the past half year, appellate courts in Indiana and Washington, D.C. have handed down opposite decisions involving the reach of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (2005).
In the case of gun manufacturers, at stake is the future of the $2 billion firearms industry. The Second Amendment has come under particular fire this past year and is the focus of a landmark hearing today at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding gun ownership. The court has weighing the issue of gun control in Heller, which pits those that believe the number of lives lost to gun-related violence is a tragic consequence of lax gun-control laws, versus others who claim an individual Constitutional right to own and bear arms.
Nation also says that some level of criminal use is to be expected due to decisions manufacturers make concerning the design, production, marketing and distribution of their firearms.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Thủ đô Washington, DC, nơi có nhiều án mạng gây thương tích, tử thương vì súng đạn, đã ra đạo luật kiểm soát/kiềm chế súng đạn đồng thời quy trách nghiêm ước [strict liability] về trách nhiện dân sự của nhà sản xuất loại súng tác chiến liên thanh, khi loại súng này gây tổn hại trong cộng đồng. Tuy nhiên, án lệ liên bang vẫn đối nghịch với các đạo luật kiểm soát/kiềm chế súng đạn… phần nào luật pháp liên bang có ý bảo vệ quyền hiến định sử dụng súng ống, do đó vẫn tìm cách miễn trách nhà sản xuất/cung cấp khi súng đạn của họ gây thương tích cho người bàng quan.
A federal firearms statute bars individual strict liability claims brought against gun manufacturers pursuant to a local gun control law governing assault weapons, the D.C. Court of Appeals has ruled in affirming a dismissal.
In an earlier decision, the court ruled that gun manufacturers couldn’t be sued for negligent distribution or public nuisance. (See “Gun manufacturers can’t be sued for negligence, public nuisance,” Lawyers USA, May 9, 2005. Search terms for Lawyers USA Archives: Columbia and Beretta.)
A District of Columbia law provides that manufacturers of assault rifles and machine guns shall be “strictly liable” for damages caused by the discharge of such weapons. A number of individual plaintiffs sued various gun manufactures pursuant to the law. The gun manufacturers argued that the plaintiffs’ strict liability claims were barred by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
The Act, while broadly prohibiting tort claims against gun manufacturers based on the misuse of firearms, provides what is commonly known as the “predicate exception,” allowing actions that allege a “violat[ion of] a . . . statute applicable to the sale or marketing of” a firearm.
Here, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that their strict liability claims fell within the ambit of the predicate exception because they alleged that the defendants knowingly violated the D.C. assault weapons law.
“The [D.C. law] imposes no duty on firearms manufacturers or sellers to operate in any particular manner or according to any standards of care or reasonableness. The statute is ‘violated,’ in the plaintiffs’ view, merely when a person is killed or injured by the discharge of an assault weapon manufactured or sold by a named defendant – an injury that may occur years after the manufacture or sale and despite the utmost care taken in the manufacture or sale..
“The [D.C. law], in short, imposes a duty to pay compensation – neither more nor less – and normal principles of statutory construction make it impossible for us to conclude that Congress intended to exempt an action founded on so attenuated a connection between a statutory ‘violation’ and an injury from the reach of those civil actions the [federal statute] proscribes,” the court said.
In addition, the court decided that the application of the federal statute to bar the plaintiffs’ claims didn’t violate constitutional guarantees of the separation of powers, due process or “just compensation” for the government’s “taking” of private property.
Court of Appeals. District of Columbia v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp. (Lawyers USA No. 9939070) D.C No. 06-CV-721. Jan. 10, 2008.
Việt Thức [Source: Medical News Today, Baylor Law Review]
