10 Thursday AM Reads

People don’t kill people, policy does

Agreed, 3.7% is a great number for a developed economy. If memory serves though, we’ve had similar good quarters since 2009, but “escape velocity” has never been achieved. Estimates for Q3 are in the 1.5-3% range IIRC.

But yes, you’d think six years on, we could finally shelve the “emergency, temporary” interest rate policy. I doubt it though. After all, those buybacks at record highs don’t fund themselves.

Brilliant rd!
You can have as many guns as you want; you just need liability insuance on them.
Why is that idea not a “thing” in today’s discussion?

Home owner’s policies already cover accidental gun related deaths. I think the market based solution you are looking for would be to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Gun manufactures should be liable for the injuries their products cause.

reedsch – What a great question. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have it debated in a court of law by experts on the subject, rather than in the comment section of an economic blog?

I pulled some stuff from a course outline of strict products liability tort law from New York University:

Here is an example from a gun case (I have added some explanations for the abbreviations and symbols in parentheses):

4) SUBSTANTIVE BASIS OF STRICT LIABILITY
a) Consumer Expectations and Product Performance
i) Analysis – Absolute Liability (Focus entirely on PL (products liability) – product failure)
(1) Consumer expectations are frustrated if the product performs differently than expected – open and obvious risks thus cannot frustrate expectations
(2) Product is defective where the product is in a condition not contemplated by the ultimate consumer which will be unreasonably dangerous to him
(a) Focus is entirely on product performance without consideration of cost
(3) Policy of risk spreading by Δ which leads to the conclusion that any harm would result in liability irrespective of the cost of making changes
ii) Cases
(1) Halliday v. Sturm, Ruger & Co. (MD 2002) (holding that there was no COA (cause of action) against Δ (defendant) when Π’s (plaintiff’s) child shot himself with Π’s gun)
(a) Rejected arguments that gun didn’t have safety features: Grip safety, heavy trigger pull, child-resistant manual safety, trigger lock, etc.

This is not even getting into the issue of the gun manufacturers and the NRA, GOA, etc. working to prevent liability even for accidental deaths that are preventable (such as trigger locks to prevent children from using them to kill themselves or their friends they are playing with).