Michigan Votes Forum

 Sounds like a good idea. Why should a company-any company-be held liable for the misuse of their product? Should gas dealers be held liable because their product was used to cook meth etc?  Congress passed S397 a few years ago the stopped lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers for misuse of their lawfully produced and sold products by criminals etc. It did not prohibit lawsuits for defective products. The anti-gun groups wanted to make the gun manufacturers liable for the actions of criminals, including hospital bills etc for gang-bangers and by doing so, put the manufacturers and dealers out of business. Ron Paul voted against S397.

I agree whole heartedly. This is another example of gov't overreach. Most legislation, no matter how "well intended" it may be, will almost always have unintended consequences. In 2009 the federal gov't passed a law banning lead in children's toys. Who would be against this? Certainly one of the few things both parties can agree on. However a radical "safety nazi" organization used this law to ban ATV manufactures from making kid sized dirt bikes and quads due to the lead in the batteries! I rode dirt bikes as a kid. Some of my greatest childhood memories were riding dirt bikes up north during summer vacation. The only way that the lead in the batteries could do any harm is if you were to unhook the cable and suck on the terminal. Can't say I've ever heard of anyone doing that. Thankfully the law was corrected to exempt youth off road vehicles from the ban. But there were a couple of years where manufactures were losing millions of dollars due to the ban. Not to mention all the money lost by the dealerships. See why the gov't needs to be closely monitored!

Kind of off topic, but I recall another case where the Govt. tried to get a small time Ohio drug dealer charged under federal law because he was selling drugs from his house. Their logic was that since his house was heated with natural gas and Ohio had no natural gas wells, then he was engaged in trafficking in interstate commerce. Now that was a stretch-but they tried it-and failed.