Reply #13: A repost. [View All]

[the_acid_one]

Where to begin?

Let's see...Let's start with the Bryco, since it's featured with such prominance in the article. Bryco is a manufacturer of cheap guns, quality and price wise. A bryco semi automatic pistol can typically be bought for around $100-$200. The lack of "safety" features helps keeps price down and that is why they are not there.

It has nothing to do with a "corrupt gun industry" as some people like to put it. You can buy a BMW with anti-lock brakes, highly engineered "crunch" points, side airbags and radar collision detection, and it will be safeer then the yugo with standard breaks, gas tank in the position most likely to explode, poor handling, and no airbags. The differance? About $55,000. Is this because Yugo is a corrupt car manufacturer?

No, it's because it's bout as cheap to buy a new yugo as it is to fix your old one if it breaks.

And now for fun with statistics!

At least 9,485 people were killed -- and another 127,000 wounded -- in unintentional shootings from 1993 to 2001.

Unintentional shootings include "accidently pulling the trigger" and shooting youself in the ass, or "accidently" shooting your partner in the head. Some of them may have been caused by "defective" firearms. More likely is that they couldnt have been prevented by anything less then welding the trigger in place because the shooter is an idiot.

The pistol, a Bryco Model 38 semiautomatic, lacked critical safety features, making the weapon more dangerous to handle. There was no easy way to tell the gun was loaded and it fired even after the magazine -- the clip with ammunition -- had been removed.

First rule of firearms safety. Every gun is always loaded. What do you do when making a gun "safe"? CHECK THE CHAMBER! Every time! Even when a fellow "firearms enthusiast", who knows what he's doing, and might as well be called an "expert" checks the chamber and hands me a gun, right after I take it, I keep my finger off the trigger, I check the chamber for myself, and then I might dry fire it pointed in a safe direction


Quote: Some poorly designed guns have gone off accidentally in the hands of children and inexperienced firearm owners, who made foreseeable mistakes.


Forseeable mistakes= pulling the trigger while pointed in an unsafe direction. No safety prevents that.

Ruger ignored nearly a century of safety technology when it manufactured the gun to original specifications, with no device to prevent the exposed hammer from striking the cartridge if the gun fell or hit a hard surface.

Just like the orginal. Hardly a defect. That'd be like complaining if you were injured because your exact replica of the Model T didnt include anti lock breaks, airbags, and superior handling through modern design. Remember, the gun in question is from the late 1800's. of course it doesnt have modern safety features!

Safety features, like those missing from the Bryco pistol that shot Brandon Maxfield, are especially effective in preventing accidents among people with limited knowledge of firearms.

They're referring to "magazine safeties". The problem in that case is not a defective firearm, it's a defective user. That being said, the lawsuit protection bill Mr Benchley keeps bringing up would not cover defective firearms.

Bryco, which I agree makes unsafe guns (cheap products are often less safe...no news here) would still be liable if someone dropped a gun and it went off and injured them. Lawsuit pre-emption would prevent people from suing companies like Beretta, maker of safe firearms, because of a criminal action by a third party. In short, The bill has nothing to do with defective firearms, only defective people.