It is clear that the lawsuits considered in this study, especially in the Hamilton case filed by Elisa Barnes, call for judicial lawmaking. Ms. Barnes requested Judge Weinstein because of his proclivity for making novel judicial law, and she fought successfully against having him removed when his standing to hear the case was challenged by the defendant gun manufacturers. To this point, the courts have recognized that further erosion of the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial functions of government is not in the country's long-term best interest. Destroying Sound Tort Law Principles. If this principle is discarded, the courts will be crushed under the weight of new lawsuits and it will not be long before extremists among us try to use the law to shut industrial civilization down.
Criminals also use knives, prescription drugs and household products to commit crimes.
The courts are fully aware of the potential difficulties posed if manufacturers are held responsible for the criminal misuse or negligent use of nondefective products. Accordingly, they have thus far rejected attempts to alter tort law to single out and punish the firearms industry. Attorney Anne Kimball argued that attempts to impose liability on firearms manufacturers either because of the inherent nature of the product or its distribution would fail. 83 Ms. Kimball detailed three legal arguments raised against firearms manufacturers, all of which the courts have thus far uniformly rejected. Second, firearms manufacturers fail to warn of the dangers inherent in firearms use and from misuse.