If memory serves, Cessna and Piper stopped making light aircraft for the domestic civilian market sometime in the 80's. The reason was that every time some pilot stuffed his Skymaster into a mountain after taking off drunk in a snowstorm immediately following a double cataract operation and was found to have been having sex at the controls at the time of the crash, some gutter slime lawyer would claim that the position of the altimeter was the cause and the pilots family would get a zillion $ payout. Cessna turned around and basically said "To hell with the lot of you" and stopped selling us planes, this was OK for a while, but then eventually we started running out of aircraft and as there are not many foreign manufacturers the situation became embarrasing, the Government (God love 'em, phhheeeewww)had to pass a law protecting the light plane manufacturers from the attention of the pond scum. What I'm getting at is that this is exactly whats happening with handguns (and cigarrettes for that matter), these malicious lawsuits brought largely by the families of dead gangbangers will eventually start to stick and the gun manufacturers will begin to fade away as the payouts become increasingly bizarre, this is where the fight is, much as I hate them we need some good lawyers of our own to fight the cases, and the best, most expensive lobbyists in Washington to campaign for a protectionist law as was applied for the aircraft manufacturers.
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Mike H
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Mike H