Readers' Comments

1. September 25, 2012 11:01 AM

I have a simple question - If a gun manufacturer should be responsible for its misuse - Should a knife manufacturer be responsible when it is used to stab someone? Should an alcohol manufacturer and a car manufacturer be held responsible when someone purchases both items, drives drunk, and kills someone? Where do we draw the line?

— Eric Schwarz

2. September 25, 2012 10:47 AM

I have a simple question - If a gun manufacturer should be responsible for its misuse - Should a knife manufacturer be responsible when it is used to stab someone? Should an alcohol manufacturer and a car manufacturer be held responsible when someone purchases both items, drives drunk, and kills someone? Where do we draw the line?

— Eric Schwarz

3. September 19, 2012 07:12 PM

One would presume that a law professor knows what precedent is. That being the case, why is this person advocating a ban that can't possibly pass constitutional muster?



U.S. v. Miller (1939), cited in D.C. v. Heller (2008), established a two-pronged test to determine which types of small arms are "protected" under the Second Amendment. "Protected" arms must be "in common use", and must "bear[s] some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated milita."



The author states, as if these attributes fail the test, "Semi-automatic weapons — such as the Uzi, the TEC-9, some AK-47s and the Colt AR-15 — have the capacity to kill a large number of people in a short amount of time. In fact, they have no other purpose. Semi-automatic weapons are not used to hunt; they would obliterate the animal. They exist to fire multiple bullets in quick succession, a function that is useful only in war."



Please demonstrate how AR-15's et al fail the Miller test, i.e. that they are not "in common use", and that they do not "bear some reasonable relationship to the preservation . . . of a . . . militia."



By definition, these weapons meet those two criteria PRECISELY. Further, their attributes are absolutely necessary to fulfill the primary (but not the only) reason for the amendment's existence.



So again I ask, what is a law professor doing advocating ultra vires actions by the legislature that are clearly impermissible under U.S. v. Miller, D.C. v. Heller, and McDonald v. City of Chicago?



As to torts, a person responsibly exercising a lawful act (self-defense) cannot be held for that act. To insist otherwise is pure lunacy. As to product liability, if the product is legal and functions as designed, the manufacturer cannot be held liable for its misuse, either.



Suggestion: Check the water supply at Irvine. Someone may have introduced hallucenogenics into the reservoir.

— BHirsh

4. September 19, 2012 05:28 PM

Professor Chemerinsky I am sure understands the law, but is I sense that he is unfamiliar with the technology of the firearms used in the shootings that he invokes as a basis for a ban on assault rifles. The firearms used in the Gifford's assault were handguns, as were the firearms used at the Virginia Tech and Fort Hood assaults. The facts of the Aurora shootings were that the large capacity magazine of the assault rifle jammed the rifle, and it appears that more casualties were caused by the shotgun than by any of the other firearms used. Further, I would point out (from extensive personal observation) that engagement of targets in the dark, with an assault rifle is quite an art and few soldiers (even with much practice) are very good at it (for most people, a shotgun should be the weapon of choice in the dark). As to the claim that they are "product that serves no purpose but to kill people and each year causes many deaths" that is a bare assertion unsupported by evidence; from personal observation, I know many people who own and use what are characterized as assault rifles, who have derived many hours of enjoyment from shooting them in a responsible manner.

— Steuart

5. September 19, 2012 10:07 AM

Erwin sounds much like a five year old on a tricycle attempting to give advice to NASCAR racers about winning race strategy. He is living proof that lawyers speaking outside their area of expertise are nothing more than hacks using their reputation in one field to buffalo people about something entirely different.

Read http://jack-burton.hubpages.com/hub/Assault-Weapons-Evil-Black-Rifles-or-perhaps-not and in five minutes you'll know more about so called assault weapons than the author has learned in a lifetime.

— jack burton