Caitlin Halligan Goes Down
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 8 months ago
Hartford Courant has a silly editorial demanding that we hold gun manufacturers liable for crimes committed with their products. Ain’t going to happen. In one more small victory for freedom, the Senate blocked the wicked witch of the East, Caitlan Halligan in her bid to fill a vacancy on the D.C. circuit court of appeals.
President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill one of the vacancies on the powerful appeals court in Washington withdrew Friday, two weeks after the Senate blocked her from a getting a confirmation vote.
The National Rifle Association had opposed New York attorney Caitlin Halligan due to her involvement while Solicitor General for the state of New York in a lawsuit against gun manufacturers. The NRA said she had tried to undermine a federal law which prohibited lawsuits against gun manufacturers in cases involving criminal misuse of firearms.
The NRA made that claim because it’s true.
Caitlin J. Halligan, who in her tenure as Solicitor General of the State of New York, attempted to hold firearms manufactures and retailers responsible for crimes committed with guns. In 2006, Halligan also filed a brief arguing that handgun manufacturers were guilty of creating a public nuisance. This caused an almost incredulous rejection by the New York Court of Appeals.
“The New York Court of Appeals has never recognized a common-law public nuisance cause of action based on allegations like those in this complaint. Moreover, other jurisdictions have dismissed public nuisance claims against firearms manufacturers on similar or other grounds… In light of the foregoing, we believe it is legally inappropriate, impractical and unrealistic to mandate that defendants undertake, and the courts enforce, unspecified measures urged by plaintiff in order to abate the conceded availability and criminal use of illegal handguns.” (People Of The State Of New York v. Sturm & Ruger Co., 309 A.D.2d 91, 2003).
When the New York Court of Appeals thinks you’re too radical, you have a problem. There is much ground to be tilled before we’ve seen the last of Obama’s gun-grabbing efforts. But this is a small victory, and one to relish. Now, on to the next task, perhaps destroying the recapitulation of the U.N. gun grabbing efforts.
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