I'm probably shooting my mouth off prematurely, since I'm on the road and haven't researched the point -- but I don't believe the liability exclusion for "negligence per se" can fairly be said to retain all negligence liability. Negligence per se applies when the defendant has violated certain pertinent statutes; I'm not sure (without reminding myself through research) whether negligence per se covers any other conduct, but it is not equivalent to just plain "negligence".

The Des Moines Register had a - to put it kindly - misleading Editorial on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. I take it to task here.

Congratulations on 3 years... love your blog

Hmmm... Well, I'm not a lawyer (although I play one on TV) but from what I gather from articles like this one is that if there are certain regulations that must be followed -- such as BATF regulations or state law regulations -- and they aren't, then even if unintentional, if that failure to comply with laws or regulations (or statutes) results in injury, there is negligence per se.

Certainly the BATF requires a clear accounting for all guns in the possession of a firearms dealer. Bull's Eye clearly wasn't able to do that since up to two hundred guns "disappeared" from their premises. Therefore they are liable for failure to comply with BATF regulations and probably Washington State regulations as well. This would make them negligent per se.

But I could be wrong and welcome input from any lawyers out there...

Negligence per se means you have violated a statute and/or regulation that is directly related to the injury in question. So, not all violations of statutes are negligence per se (imagine having a car accident while you didn't have a driver's license: having a driver's license has nothing to do with making the accident more likely to have occurred) but most are (imagine having a car accident while you are speeding: this is negligence per se).

So if the Bull's Eye Gun Shop fails to secure or account for their inventory in violation of BATF rules and because of that, one of those guns falls into the hands of and is used by the DC Snipers, was that negligence per se? That's what I'm trying to figure out here.

I think the answer to Jeff's question is Yes.

My earlier comment left out the statute's "negligent entrustment" provisions. Between negligence per se and negligent entrustment, it's hard to come up with many negligent acts that wouldn't be covered -- but if there's no statute saying, for example, "lock the doors when closing up at night", or "run criminal records checks on prospective employees", then failure to follow those precautions would not be actionable.

Some jurisdictions treat violation of federal statute as negligence per se, others as evidence of negligence, and others could be both depending upon the statute. For example (using state law), an equipment violation of no brakelights could be negligence per se, but driving without a license could be evidence of negligence.

In the present example, if I were counsel for plaintiff I would bring it under both subsections, but the one about keeping records would seem to be a slam dunk. One more note is that this law is not about the burden of showing negligence, but rather about getting past summary judgment to the jury. Once a judge rules, as a matter of law, that an exemption applies, the case proceeds as if the statute did not exist.

"Again, though, isn't this a problem of criminal control (or lack of) on the part of the Canadian government and their border agents? They already -- now -- require a passport from anyone in the US crossing into their country. If they need to increase their searches of vehicles, so be it. "

The Canadian govt. does not require US citizens to have a passport to enter Canada, it is the US govt. that is going to require a passport for US citizens to re-enter the US, in 2008. The Canadian govt. opposes this.

Please get your facts straight!

You're right, I should have said, "soon". And yes, this is in response to a US measure. I've corrected the post to that effect.

Here's an incredibly biased BBC "news" story about the Brazilian gun prohibition vote, which incidentally the UN had pushed energetically:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4371120.stm

"...And yet the Brazilian people have voted in a referendum to reject a proposal to ban the sale of firearms.

"So what happened? To outsiders, this referendum looked like a no-brainer.

"In a country where one person is killed with a gun every 15 minutes, surely the public would vote in favour of an outright ban on gun sales?

"Wrong. ..."

The reporter looks like a no-brainer to me.

Capt. Bill

It would be nice if the media could be held chargeable when non-objective articles appear in their newspapers, or on tv news.

It used to be that news (of days gone by) was supposed to be hard hitting AND objective.

That IS what used to sell papers.

No wonder their circulation numbers are dropping like flies.

Antonio Banderas may not like guns, but I bet his body guards have lots of them. So does his chaufeur.

(And do you know what? I bet he has a cary permit. )

Discovered your site from the link at KABA. I've read through 5 of your past "Weekly Reports" now and admire your breezy style and the way you sort of weave things together. Good job. Im going to add you to my reading list.

--Harry