Gun Bill

The Act to protect law-abiding gun manufacturers and dealers from frivolous and harassing lawsuits passed the Senate by 65-31. To cast your vote against this bill says that you find something to like about the following absurd notion of product liability: If some nutso gets drunk and kills his wife by hitting her over the head with an Acme shovel, the Acme Shovel Co. becomes the proper target of a lawsuit, as does the Ace Hardware store where the shovel was purchased six years ago. Neither the logic nor the legal theory involved are clear to me, but they seem to be either (1) that our society should go to any length to insure that trial lawyers are able to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense; or (2) that guns are dangerous and icky and people shouldn't be allowed to own them, so any tactic that puts gun makers and manufacturers out of business is justified.

The members of the Senate whose principles apparently match one or both of those are listed below. With a few exceptions, it is a Blue-state murderer's row of modern liberalism's finest thinkers.

Byron


Boxer (D-CA)
Feinstein (D-CA), Not Voting
Dodd (D-CT)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Biden (D-DE)
Carper (D-DE)
Akaka (D-HI)
Inouye (D-HI)
Durbin (D-IL)
Obama (D-IL)
Bayh (D-IN)
Harkin (D-IA)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Levin (D-MI)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Dayton (D-MN)
Sununu (R-NH) Not Voting
Corzine (D-NJ)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Clinton (D-NY)
Schumer (D-NY)
DeWine (R-OH)
Smith (R-OR), Not Voting
Wyden (D-OR)
Chafee (R-RI)
Reed (D-RI)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Murray (D-WA)
Feingold (D-WI)