Cessna and Handguns, Legally the same issue ?

M

Mike H

New member
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
 
And this is the exact reason we should never ever shirk our responsibility to serve jury duty.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
True! AND while serving on the jury, remember Jury Nullification is a legal right and a moral imperative - even if you must do it by "hanging" the jury.

Stick it to 'em! RKBA!
 
We do have people in D.C. attempting to pass legislation protecting manufacturers and businesses from absurd law suits. The GOP has passed Tort Reform legislation, only to have it vetoed by Clinton. Gov. Bush is also a big supporter of tort reform. The Dems. will never allow tort reform if they can prevent it. They are owned by the trial lawyers.

Just think, with a GOP President, Congress and three more Supremes Court justices who adhere to the Constitution, we may be able to put an end to greedy lawyers that try to bankrupt legal businesses.

This is just one of many differences that separate the two major parties.
 
Let's tell the other half of the Cesna story: In the vacum left by small airplane manufacturers grew a thriving "kit-plane" industry. Kit plane manufacturers could not be sued because the aircraft were legally experimental, (With an "Abandon all hope" sticker over the door.) and in any case the manufacturer was the person who bought the kit or plans, and built the plane themselves.

This situation was a real pain for people who just wanted to lay out some cash and walk away with an airplane, but it DID advance the design technology of small aircraft enormously, because of all the experimentation going on.

Too bad there's already such a regulatory lock on firearms that we can't just evade the anti-gunners by building "kit guns". (Well, actually we could; It just wouldn't be legal.)

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Sic semper tyranus!
 
Now we have what used to be a Gates Lear Jet problem. Sad but so. A very good plane and a
great loss of life. I can't think of the name of the company right now but they will suffer as well. Fine plane "expensive"=pro pilots.
Hank
 
Any airplane can have a bad day. I remember when I could buy a *new* Cessna 172 for around $11,500 depending on options. Wanna quote how much they are now? With essentially zero changes?

Lears suck, BTW, way too much bucks for a bird you have to belly crawl to your seat in. Performance is great, making it obviously designed for a pilot, not a passenger. But I doubt that it's the pilots who were buying them.
 
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