On Dec. 13 a judge
threw out a lawsuit by Miami-Dade County against gun manufactuters. Miami-Dade
County is on of about 30 local governments suing two dozen gun makers
claiming their marketing practices are negligent.
While this is
good news, the Mayor of Miami-Dade County, Alex Penelas, noted that precisely
the same thing happened to the tobacco industry during initial rounds
of lawsuits against that industry. “And we know where that stands now,”
Penelas told the Associated Press.
If I were a betting
man I would wager that eventually the gun industry will lose this battle.
Yesterday the NBC Nightly News featured the revelation that the shooters
at Columbine bragged on videotapes that the massacre would be just like
“Doom,” a popular video game they played, prompting hand wringing and
lawsuits against video game manufactuters over school shootings around
the country.
As one of the
academics they interviewed put it, we are quickly reaching a point in
America where nobody is responsible for their actions anymore and all
causation and blame for evil acts is laid at the feet of those who manufacuture
guns, knives, cars, video games or what have you.
The media understands
this and plays to it. After the brief summary of the videotapes the Columbine
killers made Tom Brokaw despearetly intoned that the videotapes still
didn’t explain why the two students went on a killing rampage. It is becoming
increasingly difficult in the age of widespread victimhood to say that
people can willfully choose to do evil acts.
Every time there’s
a shooting someone wants to blame parents or guns or videogames or rock
music rather than noting that this is a fundamental part of having free
will — people can, and a minority always have, choose to committ evil
acts.
Reference:
Judge
dismisses Miami’s lawsuit against gun makers from the Associated Press
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