Asymmetrical Information

.....except that he points out that the makers of el-cheapo, dumped off "why, this definitely isn't for crime!" guns are the ones suffering.

Another quote from the article:
'As a result of these lawsuits, the distributors' demand for meaningful insurance has helped make the manufacture of junk guns financially untenable.'

I can't see anything wrong with that.

What an amazingly one-sided article.

"If nothing else, forcing gun manufacturers to buy legitimate insurance cut down on their juicy, sometimes 100-plus percent profit margins."

And Carol Vinzant appears to suffer from serious innumeracy. Perhaps she should sue the NEA. And all those "junk schools", yeah, put them out of business so they can not continue "their racket of dumping millions of unreliable..." educations "...on the poor."

Or maybe she's a financial genius. If anyone can suggest ways to get a profit margin of more than 100%, please let the rest of us in on it.

If anyone can suggest ways to get a profit margin of more than 100%, please let the rest of us in on it.

Easy. When you buy, say, one of those $5.99 audio cables at RadioShack, you're paying anywhere from three to five times the store cost. Ditto for most of the other accessories, small parts, and brick-a-brack. Bigger-ticket items are usually very thin. Ditto for the big-box stores although their sales are biased more toward the big-ticket sales, so their net margins are a lot narrower.

There are at least two ways of calculating margins, one on the cost and the other on the price.

Jason McCullough wants to keep guns out of the hands of the poor, many of whom are black. And he also thinks Trent Lott is a racist, I'll bet.

We report, you decide.

they're defective.. how? they cost too little...

the left is consistent... you hear the same arguments against walmart expansion and any big chain... "hurting our city" (those evil capitalists that you wanted toi kill 3 minutes ago)

new york observer has a funny article about smug.. protesting profit!

so funny, yet so true...

and the only way to calculate profit is revs-costs...

you can make 110% profit.. but that's a really special and untenable state (discounts and rebates where you have no costs.. although goes out the windoww with abc..)

Unfortunately, I don't recall where I read this, but there was an analysis a few years back about the rise of "high-powered" handguns on the streets. These are the 9mm handguns commonly used in street crimes, including Glock, Browning, etc.

Turns out that a major reason for their growth was the disappearance of the old "Saturday night specials." Federal legislation had helped drive the crappily-made, inaccurate, sometimes downright-dangerous handguns out of existence. But it DIDN'T drive the criminals out of existence; instead, they went to the next level.

Which, unfortunately, meant guns w/ high capacity magazines, and much longer range. And given the amount of time these fine members of the community tend to spend on the shooting range, the rounds now fly farther, in greater profusion.

So, beware what you wish for....

Sadly, I ran into a group of what looked like young gang-bangers or potential gang members at a shooting range. I have to admit, I'm going on appearances (baggy clothes, shiny chrome pistols, bandanas). On the upside, they were fairly accurate.

On the other hand, the guy at the range I saw with a badge of some sort (police or security guard), had an even distribution of holes all over a rather large target... at about five yards.

Bolie IV

Jason,

Could you define the term "junk gun" for me? What about "junk cars"? Should be sue Geo for selling cheap, low quality Metros?

Could you tell me why you object to guns being sold at low prices? Is there something wrong with giving people a choice, and letting them balance quality and price for themselves?

If this were a straight product liablity claim--someone had a pot-metal pistol blow up and lost a couple of fingers--I'd be 100% behind the plaintiffs.

But it isn't. It's an ideologically driven attempt to use bogus legal theories to drive manufacturers of legal products to bankrupcy. If these people want to regulate guns, let them do it through the normal legislative process, not through legal blackmail.

The anti-gun crowd must come to terms with the knowledge that "Gun Control" was initially an anti-black measure and that, thinly disguised it still is.

Rob: Hey! I had an '89 Metro - and it was surprisingly sturdy.

Personally, I have a soft spot for some cheap guns. I used to have a Jennings .22 automatic (I gave it to a female friend when she turned 21), and I loved that $85 little pistol.

I need to get another little popgun like that. They're surprising fun, and as accurate as you could want for something with a tiny little barrel.

Cheap, reasonable reliable guns are a great thing. (The Jennings is only "reasonable reliable" because it's kinda picky with the ammo.)

'Could you define the term "junk gun" for me? What about "junk cars"?'

Product manufacturers in every other industry are liable if they sell shoddy stuff. Why should the firearms industry be different?

>> Product manufacturers in every other industry are liable if they sell shoddy stuff.

Actually, they're not. They're liable if they sell stuff that malfunctions and someone gets hurt. Interestingly enough, so are gun manufacturers.

However, GM is not liable when a drunk kills someone with a car that functioned perfectly. The folks suing about guns think that gun manufactuers should be liable when a gun works perfectly.

> Why should the firearms industry be different?

Yes, why should the firearms industry be any different? Why should it be liable when a gun works?

Actually, the lawsuits described in the article are either straight product liability lawsuits (including one case just like the hypothetical Rob Lyman descibed), or suits based on negligent distribution.

However it just so happens that the companies that make defective guns and have been judged to negligently sell them to criminals tend to be the ones who manufacture cheap guns.

So I don't think the charge that this is paternalism and biased against the poor really holds up. If you accepted that logic, then any sort of law or tort regarding product liability or negligent distribution would be inherently anti-poor.

Also, the article had another interesting piece of data: handgun sales peaked in 1993 and have dropped roughly in half since then. Hmmm... that correlates pretty neatly with the decline in murder rates. Perhaps, just maybe, there could be causal relationship there?

Jason--

With all due respect--and I don't intentionally insult people--you have been badly duped by anti-gunners. You don't know what the real issue is here. Literal product-liablity suits against gun makers are VERY VERY rare, because guns are among the best made, most reliable consumer products out there. The gun industry has NO SPECIAL PROTECTION agaist defective product suits, and people who claim otherwise are lying or ignorant. These lawsuits are based on bogus legal theories--specifically, that a gun maker is responsible if a criminal uses a legal, non-defective product for an illegal purpose. That's TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

RC--

One of the chief reasons handgun sales were so high in 1993 was Bill Clinton's election and the Brady Law debates. People scrambled to buy guns before restrictive laws of uncertain effect were put into place. You can watch this phenomenon any time restrictive legislation is seriously proposed and looks like it might pass.

New gun sales have been falling as some folks realize that 1) You can still buy a handgun, so immediate purchase isn't necessary, and 2) I don't need this handgun I bought, I might as well sell it.

Clinton actually got a "Gun Salesman of the Year" award from some gun group for his role in the '93 binge buy. If some new law looks like it might pass, watch the sales numbers rise again.

As for the murder rate thing, decent guns have a useful life measured in decades with regular use, centuries without it, and the American gun stock is HUGE, so I have a hard time seeing how new gun sales would have even the slightest effect on murder rates.

Finally, the "negligent distribution" legal theory comes under the term "bogus legal theory." Gun makers use the same wholesaler-retailer system that every other product in the country uses; they advertise and try to maximize sales like everyone else. They also comply with a dense net of legal regulations.

If the gun makers break the law, fine--sue them. If the regulations let guns get into the hands of criminals despite 100% compliance by gun makers, the solution is to alter the regulations, not try to bankrupt people you don't like.

decent guns have a useful life measured in decades with regular use, centuries without it

Small caveat to add, "with proper care and maintenance." Forget the cleaning and gun oil and I've heard bad things happen after a while.

Literal product-liablity suits against gun makers are VERY VERY rare, because guns are among the best made, most reliable consumer products out there. The gun industry has NO SPECIAL PROTECTION agaist defective product suits, and people who claim otherwise are lying or ignorant. These lawsuits are based on bogus legal theories--specifically, that a gun maker is responsible if a criminal uses a legal, non-defective product for an illegal purpose. That's TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

Yes, lawsuits demanding magic fingerprint detection are pretty wacky. However, suing because your gun explodes is perfectly fine, and I'm not sure what to think about distribution lawsuits.

An analogy: imagine that for some reason, inner city teenagers (or backwoods hillbillies, whatever) discover that running over someone in a car kills 'em up real good, and there's a run on cheap cars ($300?) at all the used places in town.

Should a car company be liable if they respond to this by developing, say, a new kind of car that costs virtually nothing and only lasts about a year before breaking down? They damn well know what they're up to; does this balance out the legitimate uses of the product?

>> Should a car company be liable if they respond to this by developing, say, a new kind of car that costs virtually nothing and only lasts about a year before breaking down? They damn well know what they're up to; does this balance out the legitimate uses of the product?

Huh? They've developed a car that is virtually free and you think that they should be sued because some folks use cars in inappropriate ways?

Actually - we don't have to deal in hypotheticals. Should the folks who sell/manufacture camcorders, digital cameras, and instant cameras be held liable because they're the dominant recording media used by pedophiles and folks who record gang-rapes.

Should a car company be liable if they respond to this by developing, say, a new kind of car that costs virtually nothing and only lasts about a year before breaking down? They damn well know what they're up to; does this balance out the legitimate uses of the product?

Except that to extend that hypothetical analogy out to properly mirror its firearms counterpart, we start with $300 cars but have to also allow for $400 cars, and $500 cars, and $1000 cars, and $20,000 cars, and so forth -- all made to varying degrees of quality, all with the potential to kill someone.

Where do you draw the mark and say "Below THIS LINE is the market where guns are almost always used for illegal purposes?" I can illustrate the legal ramifications of that approach by pouring oil down a steep hillside.

Furthermore, how do you justify the fact that you ARE cutting off access to low-income brackets, who -- no matter what your assumptions are and no matter how valid they may be -- very well might have a legal use for a cheap firearm?

Incidentally, I have interacted with several low-income hispanics (low-income hispanics provide nearly all of the agricultural labor in my area) and I can assure you they do indeed use many $300 and $500 cars that last a year or two, tops -- for legal purposes. Only difference is that to get cars this way they obviously have to buy very old used cars.

Guns tend to retain their value so long as they are adequately maintained (or rapidly become unuseable if they are not), so comparable options in the gun market are much more scarce.

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