Constitutional Law

IL Supreme Court on Lawful Protection of Commerce Act

PDF here. Adames v. Sheahan. UPDATE: this is strange. The link stopped working. I had a perfectly ordinary pdf in another window, so to test it I hit reload ... and it went blank, too.

Basically, a correctional officer kept a Beretta at home. His son got the gun (apparently despite being locked away) and thought that removing the magazine leaves it unloaded. He pulled the trigger with a round chambered and killed a friend.

Next of kin sued the government and Beretta, the latter because the gun didn't have a magazine disconnect safety and the loaded chamber indicator supposedly wasn't enough (I suspect the argument was it didn't have something saying "loaded chamber"), and on failure to warn.

The Illinois Supreme Court holds that the Protection of Lawful Commerce Act applies, and bars the suit since the suit is based on criminal misuse (negligent manslaughter). Plaintiff's arguments that doesn't apply because the shooter was adjudicated delinquent rather than convicted, that the adjudication doesn't count because it's unpublished, etc. are rejected.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on March 19, 2009 (boomark / email).