Les Jones

Guns > Overlawyered on Bloomberg's Proposed Gun Laws

Walter Olson of Overlawyered emails that he has an editorial in The New York Times:

In January, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed a bill passed by the City Council making gun makers and dealers liable for crimes perpetrated with their products unless they adopt a "code of conduct" that, among other things, would limit the number of handguns they can sell to one person and require background checks on prospective buyers at gun shows. The strange thing about this new law is that it applies not only to sales within New York City, but also to sales in other states and cities.

Besides extending NYC laws to the rest of the country, the proposed law demands that gun manufacturers be responsible for whom their guns are ultimately sold to. Large manufacturers sell to distributors, who sell to dealers, who sell to individuals. Now NYC wants to make manufacturers responsible for gun dealers' decisions.

When California decided to stop allowing sales of .50 caliber rifles, Barrett decided to stop selling .50 caliber rifles to California law enforcement. Should Bloomberg's bill pass Glock should do the same to NYC, which uses Glocks for law enforement. Failing that, if this bill passes Glock should stop selling guns to NYPD until they get indemnity against incidents like the Amadou Diallo shooting by New York police. Until NYC makes up its mind about who is responsible when things go badly, there's no need for NYC to put the blame on everyone but themselves.