Gustafson v. Springfield: Pennsylvania court rules PLCAA unconstitutional

[Metal god]

The original 1911 also does not have a firing pin block . I think the government should be liable for that as well .

Aguila , your example is another of hundreds of examples why this ruling is quite silly . Hell lets take it to the next logical step . All firearms with out a grip safety are defective

 

[44 AMP]

I'll have to do some research but I THINK at the time of the 1911 design no pistol had a magazine disconnect.

The earliest magazine disconnect pistol showed up in some European pocket pistol designs in the 20s, (I THINK so don't take this as gospel..) The earliest SERVICE class pistol with a magazine disconnect that I know of is the Browning Hi Power (1935).

SO, I THINK that at the time of the 1911 design magazine disconnects were not something even thought of.

(if my research, or yours, finds something counter to this, I will happily bow to valid information to replace my opinion)

Now, here's the question that ought to be considered, a more modern pistol than the M1911A1, its replacement.

The Beretta we adopted in 1984(?) doesn't have a magazine disconnect. IF it wasn't a required feature for the .45s replacement, only 36-ish years ago, how can a lack of the same be a "defect" today?

Do you think military trials would require a "defective" gun? I don't.

Next question, who, if anyone, has the authority and ability to slap some sense into the PA judges about what is, and isn't a defect??

Clearly they won't just accept public opinion, they don't even accept the text of Federal law as proof positive of intent, they said so in their brief...

so, what is to be done??

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I'll have to do some research but I THINK at the time of the 1911 design no pistol had a magazine disconnect.

I'm not sure that's important. What I was getting at is that the United States government specified the safety devices to be incorporated in the desigtn of the M1911, and the United States government did not include a magazine disconnet in those specifications. The United States government continued to manufacture 1911s for decades after magazine disconnects appeared, and continued to issue the M1911A1 as the Army and Marines primary sidearm until the mid-1980s, when the M1911A1 was replaced by the M9 Beretta.

If I'm not mistaken, the M9 Beretta likewise does not have a magazine disconnect.

As of 2017, the M9 Beretta began to be replaced by the M17 and M18 pistols, from Sig Sauer. And those pistols do not have magazine disconnects.

So, according to a state court judge in Pennsylvania, the United States government has been purchasing and issuing defective handguns to our troops for over 100 years, and appears poised to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.

 

[Metal god]

Do we dare say why magazine disconnects are terrible , especially for the military or law-enforcement or civilian use . If for any reason your magazine gets released and or ejected from the firearm accidentally in a critical situation it’s best you still have at least one shot to use .

It’s the very reason my XD is my HD/SD firearm . Well that and it’s never malfunctioned EVER ! Oh sorry except for that glaring defect it has .

 

[zukiphile]

As much as I dislike magazine safeties (I think they make pistols more dangerous to users), this is an instance in which focusing on the specific fact may obscure an understanding of the pertinent standards generally.

If you made a rifle receive and barrel from prints with perfectly accurate specification, but you made every metal piece 10% thinner, the barrel would fall out of the receiver and the rifle wouldn't even be operable. That doesn't mean you "just" made up a design; there was a good design in there a few steps back, but your judgment made it a wreck

Oops I clearly didn't write my post very well .

No, your post was fine -- I meant the text above as an analogy. We can have good specifications (products liability laws), but if we depart from those specifications, the result won't work optimally.

If you look at the specifications set forth by the 8th Circuit and quoted by Spats, you see several of those specifications for determining product liability in Minnesota, and a test for whether a court can dispose of the issue on law only, or if they need evidence as well.

Like I said , If that were the standard we could figure out a way to claim all firearms are defective in some way just by applying that rational .

Certainly that's the danger the prevention of which is the purpose of the PLCAA. Where the courts are intent on disturbing a protection, Congress also plays a role. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was/is a essentially a restatement of a previously and widely recognized aspect of the 1st Am. When that was eroded by the courts, Congress responded.

This is a game in which no one ever gets the last move.

 

[Spats McGee]

I finally got around to actually reading the decision and doing a little digging. Unfortunately, my Westlaw subscription doesn't allow me to get the original trial court decisions, and they do not appear available on the internet. If they appear in this thread, I must have overlooked them. If anyone knows where to find it, can you point me in the right direction?

This is a Pennsylvania Superior Court decision, which means that it's in the middle between the trial court and PA's highest court. Which means the Gun Industry Defendants have a couple of more moves before they have to decide whether they want to go to SCOTUS. (I respectfully submit that they do.)

This is one of those many, many cases that demonstrates why you can't just 'noodle your way along' through legal issues. I noticed that there's no actual mention in the Superior Court decision of the exact nature of the defect. From the looks of the decision, you are all correct in the belief that the trial court found the gun defective based on the lack of magazine disconnect. That said, I'd sure like to see the decision to see how much the trial court thought was a 'hard design' defect and how much based on lack of warning.

I say that because I see no warnings on XD pistols about firing when the magazine is removed. Granted, I didn't look at each and every one of the umpteen XD variations that are out there, but I sure didn't see any on the handful I did look at. Now, we all know and follow The Four Rules, but is it foreseeable that a group of 14 year old boys might get Dad's gun and screw around with it? Yeah, I'm afraid it is. Let's face it. It's a good thing that 14 y.o. boys heal quickly, because they're not always the brightest bulbs on the marquee. Heck, 14 y.o. boys are practically the poster children for warning labels.

I'll also note that the constitutionality of the PLCAA has been upheld by the Second Circuit (City of NY v. Beretta, a public nuisance case, cert denied by SCOTUS), and by the 9th Circuit (Ileto v. Glock, public nuisance, wrongful death and negligence, cert denied by SCOTUS). Thus, the PA Superior court was not under any controlling precedent that had already decided that PLCAA was constitutional. Not that I could find, anyway. Even had there been, this decision was based on grounds that I didn't see in my cursory review of the other decisions, so this judge might well have wiggled out from under them, anyway.

And for those of you complaining that, if we took this logic far enough, every gun could be found defective, you're right. One of the plays in The Antigunner Playbook has always been 'sue them out of existence.' Every lawsuit has its costs. Even if you win, you have to pay to defend yourself. We lawyer's aren't cheap. And they're a huge hassle. The antis decided years ago that constantly suing gun manufacturers would eventually drive them out of business. That's exactly why the PLCAA was enacted. That's exactly why the antis have fought for its repeal ever since.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I say that because I see no warnings on XD pistols about firing when the magazine is removed. Granted, I didn't look at each and every one of the umpteen XD variations that are out there, but I sure didn't see any on the handful I did look at.

The warning may be in the users manual. When I looked up whether or not the Beretta M9 and the Sig M17/M18 have magazine disconnects, I found the manual for the M18 on-line and read it. The warning is right there, in black-and-white ... on about page 40 of the manual. So notice is given ... to the owner of the firearm. Presumably, it then falls on the owner to properly instruct anyone else whom he/she allows to use the firearm. That process obviously fails if someone picks up the firearm and starts fiddling without the owners knowledge or authorization.

Does that, then, make the product defective? Does it make the notification/warning defective? If we start down that road, how may things are there that are peculiar to certain brands of automobile that could cause an accident? A simple case as an example -- many years ago, my roommate from college was from Virginia. I visited him at home one weekend. During discussion over dinner it came out that his mother couldn't understand why people always flashed their headlights at her. We finally figured out that she hadn't made the transition from the dimmer switch being a button on the floor (yes, I am that old) to a position on the turn signal stalk. Consequently, she was always driving around with her high beams on and didn't know how to switch to the low beams.

There are any number of other such things that could cause problems, such as activating or deactivating the "child-proof" locks on the rear doors of cars, or the switch some cars have for deactivating the front passenger airbag (IIRC, intended for use when the passenger is under a certain weight or height). Such things are discussed in the owners manual, but not immediately obvious to a random driver or passenger who hasn't read the manual.

We are getting into the realm of discussing how far "society" should go in trying to protect stupid people from responsibility for their acts -- and how far "society" should go to try to protect other people from the stupid acts of stupid people.

 

[Metal god]

The warning may be in the users manual.

In bold print even . Do I dare say , NUF SAID !

 

[44 AMP]

From the information in the linked article, the two boys were in someone else's house. There is no mention of the homeowner being present. There is no mention of them having permission to be there. They "obtained" the homeowner's gun. There is no mention of them having permission to do that, either.

Could be they had permission and the news just left that fact out of the article, but, even if they did have permission to be in the house, without permission to access the gun, (unlikely) then the gun was STOLEN.

There MIGHT be a case for blaming the GUN OWNER for being irresponsible, or there might not be one that meets legal requirements. Can't tell from here.

SO, absent mention that the boys had permission, we're left to assume they did not. That means they broke into someone house, stole a loaded gun, and then one of them shot the other, believing the gun was unloaded.

Explain how this can be considered the fault of the people who made the gun, and/or the people that sold it.

It just boggles my mind how any court would allow such a suit to proceed.

 

[Metal god]

It just boggles my mind how any court would allow such a suit to proceed.

Hmm , well unfortunately it does not boggle my mind . I however am in California and I see similar things all the time OK not all the time but enough when it comes to Firarms to be all boggled out . It just seems to me at least when it comes to the Second Amendment that there is clear political bias in the judiciary . I’ve always understood that the laws and courts are designed to allow arguing for the nuances of said laws . But it appears in the last recent years lawyers , States & AG‘s etc. seem to be arguing and or allowing bad faith arguments . I’m not even sure if that’s the correct terminology “bad faith” . It just seems more and more very poor arguments against the Second Amendment seem to be allowed when you would think any reasonable judge would just look at them and say “are you kidding me” . Almost as if some judges instead of looking at how the argument applies to the law they figure out a way to apply the law to the argument ??

 

[zukiphile]

Almost as if some judges instead of looking at how the argument applies to the law they figure out a way to apply the law to the argument ??

I think you are describing result oriented jurisprudence. Rather than using existing law and precedent to resolve the issue presented to a court, the court decides which side should win, then sees if if there is enough ambiguity to twist into a decision, or "discover" a basis for the result he prefers.

It's a real problem.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Almost as if some judges instead of looking at how the argument applies to the law they figure out a way to apply the law to the argument ??

I think you are describing result oriented jurisprudence. Rather than using existing law and precedent to resolve the issue presented to a court, the court decides which side should win, then sees if if there is enough ambiguity to twist into a decision, or "discover" a basis for the result he prefers.

And the irony is that those who are most prone to engage in such "result oriented jurisprudence" are the first to accuse conservative, precedent-oriented, strict constructionist judges of being "activists" and of "legislating from the bench."

 

[Metal god]

It’s not irony , it’s well thought out strategy . I’ve only been paying relatively close attention to politics in the last 10 years . The one thing I’ve noticed is one side accuse the other of doing the exact thing they themselves are doing at the time or did just prior . It would be incredibly interesting If it weren’t so hard on the system or maybe that’s the way our system has always been and I’ve never noticed . Lately I’ve seen it over and over and over again where one side is claiming and/or chanting against something that they are actually doing themselves at that very moment . I’ve been having a hard time processing it because it doesn’t make sense to me .

 

[44 AMP]

It's called a "double standard", one standard for thee, another for me...
its also known as dishonesty

it a bad thing.
Even if it sometimes works in your favor, its still a bad thing.

 

[Spats McGee]

From the information in the linked article, the two boys were in someone else's house. There is no mention of the homeowner being present. There is no mention of them having permission to be there. They "obtained" the homeowner's gun. There is no mention of them having permission to do that, either.

Could be they had permission and the news just left that fact out of the article, but, even if they did have permission to be in the house, without permission to access the gun, (unlikely) then the gun was STOLEN.

There MIGHT be a case for blaming the GUN OWNER for being irresponsible, or there might not be one that meets legal requirements. Can't tell from here....

My read on it is that Boy 1 and Boy 2 went over to Boy 3's house, and that Boy 3's dad was probably the gun owner. I'm not sure it's really 'stealing' if Boy 3 goes and gets Dad's gun to show off to Boys 1 and 2.

 

[zukiphile]

It’s ot irony , it’s well thought out strategy .

I think that's a bit generous. My reasons are set forth below.

And the irony is that those who are most prone to engage in such "result oriented jurisprudence" are the first to accuse conservative, precedent-oriented, strict constructionist judges of being "activists" and of "legislating from the bench."

I believe the terms "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" are phrases that entered popular culture in the 1970s along with a high profile case about which people typically have strong sentiments. They got plenty of ink during the Bork nomination hearings too.

I'd say it took about a decade for people who liked the vector of judicial innovation in the 1970s to respond to the accusation implicit in those phrases with a counter-accusation that when a justice like Scalia opposes those innovations and doesn't yield in the face dubious precedent, that those Scalia like justices are also "judicial activists" who "legislate from the bench". It's hardly more than "No! You are!". It implies a symmetry that isn't present.

If one believes that the COTUS is a governing document, a part of our law, and that its terms should be given their original public meaning, that doesn't describe an ideological direction; it isn't an activist urge to refuse to change the law without going to the trouble of constitutional amendment. On the other hand, if one believes as a matter of policy that political speech should be regulated by Congress, individual rights to arms should be infringed, or that Congress can regulate whatever it pleases whether in interstate commerce or not, and one is willing to set aside the text of the COTUS to achieve those policy ends, that is an activism within the judiciary.

 

[Thomas Clarke]

Link to the Original Case for Gustafson V. Springfield

I found this link off the net. I think it fairly shows what happened. The question is who is responsible for the death of the 13 year old. The 14 year old friend pleaded guilty as a juvenile. I do not know if Pennsylvania has a law that says a handgun must be locked up. In any event in my opinion the owner of the gun is responsible for the enablement of the homicide and should be fully accountable both under criminal law and under civil law. Gustafson should be going after the gun owner and his property and insurance representatives. He is the real criminal. The parent of the other boy also share in some responsibility and should be subject to both criminal and civil actions. If the accused want to say that the gun maker made is responsible, then it is up to them to try and do it.

http://https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/gustafson-v-springfield-inc-849635660

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I found this link off the net. I think it fairly shows what happened. The question is who is responsible for the death of the 13 year old. The 14 year old friend pleaded guilty as a juvenile. I do not know if Pennsylvania has a law that says a handgun must be locked up. In any event in my opinion the owner of the gun is responsible for the enablement of the homicide and should be fully accountable both under criminal law and under civil law. Gustafson should be going after the gun owner and his property and insurance representatives. He is the real criminal.

By definition, if Pennsylvania doesn't have a criminal law making the unsecured storage of a firearm a crime, then the owner of the firearm is absolutely NOT a criminal. If there isn't such a law (and www.handgunlaw.us could not find one), then the people of Pennsylvania might wish to have a discussion as to whether or not there should be a law, but that's a different question. As of now, it appears there is no such law, so it's difficult to comprehend how you can label as a "criminal" someone who has not broken any criminal law.

The parent of the other boy also share in some responsibility and should be subject to both criminal and civil actions. If the accused want to say that the gun maker made is responsible, then it is up to them to try and do it.

Again, what criminal statute did the parents of the other boy violate? With all due respect, it strikes me that you are more than a little free in labeling people as ciminals when you have nothing to indicate that they broke any laws.

I suspect I'm more than a few years older than you. My state currently has a safe storage law, but it didn't when I was growing up. I grew up in an extended family -- my family, my maternal grandparents, and two families of aunts, uncles, and assorted cousins all lived on the same road, within a half mile of one another. All the families had guns in the house. None of the guns were locked up, and all of us kids knew where the guns were kept. Miraculously, nobody got shot. Perhaps the reason was that our parents taught us that guns are not toys, that guns can and do kill people, and that if we EVER touched a firearm without permission from and supervision by one of the adults, we would regret it for a very long time. Back then, Dr. Spock was still the bible for raising children, and spanking was considered normal and appropriate discipline, not child abuse. We all survived, and most of us went on to become responsible, productive adults.

So if a kid picks up a gun and accidentally (i.e. negligently) shoots a playmate, where does responsibility lie? My view is that we reap what we sow, and what the liberals have sowed is an attitude that GUNZ! are so evil that they must never be mentioned. So instead of teaching kids how guns work and showing why they shouldn't play with them, society has made GUNZ! into an esoteric attraction that is guaranteed to arouse curiosity.

We had a similar case around here a couple of decades ago. The owner of the gun was, in fact, a police sergeant and the gun involved was his duty weapon, which he had not locked up (it wasn't required back then) when he came off duty. It was tragic, and I don't mean to suggest that it was not. But ... it was NOT criminal.

 

[natman]

So if a kid picks up a gun and accidentally (i.e. negligently) shoots a playmate, where does responsibility lie? My view is that we reap what we sow, and what the liberals have sowed is an attitude that GUNZ! are so evil that they must never be mentioned. So instead of teaching kids how guns work and showing why they shouldn't play with them, society has made GUNZ! into an esoteric attraction that is guaranteed to arouse curiosity.

By the time I was 13 I had already been trained about gun safety and would have known damn well that just removing the magazine is not enough.

My daughter had mandatory sex education in middle school, because sex is something that kids will have to deal with and it's better for them to be informed.

My daughter had mandatory drug education in middle school, because drugs are something that kids will have to deal with and it's better for them to be informed.

If someone tried to get an NRA Eddie the Eagle training at their school, parents would have rioted, because guns are EVIL, EVIL, EVIL!!!

So kids grow up ignorant of gun safety and things like this happen.

 

[44 AMP]

I don't think the actual cause of the accident here is as important as why does a panel of court judges think it is ok to sue the maker of a legal product, and the retailer of the same for the actions of a 3rd (or 4th??) party.