GuyRelford
Master
Okay, I was going to wait a few days to post another "legal quandary," but you folks did such a great job with the last one, I couldn't resist.
Here's the scenario: You are carrying OC all day, and when you get home, you go into your walk-in closet (where you have your gun safe) to put the gun into the safe for the evening, but your wife is in there picking out her shoes for the evening. There's no one else in the house, so you decide to just leave the firearm on your dresser in the bedroom - you can always put it away later. It's a 1911, it's loaded with Federal Hi-Shok hollow-points, and it's cocked and locked.
While you're taking your shower, your wife brings you a beer, which tastes pretty good to you after working hard all day. After getting out of the shower, you decide to sit on the deck and have several more beers with your wife. Then your next-door neighbor stops by and wants you to come over and see his new 64-inch HDTV - especially because the Colts game is about to come on - its Monday Night Football. Your wife decides to join you. You leave the house unlocked.
You're busy drinking beer and cheering the Colts to victory over the evil Patriots when your neighbor's 18 year-old kid, who just got out of jail on a felony drug charge, decides to check out your house while you're in his dad's living room watching the game. He finds your loaded gun on the dresser, puts it in his belt, and decides he's going to take down the local Village Pantry to score some cocaine money.
While robbing the store, he's surprised by a family walking into the store. He panics, and shoots a mom and two grade-school aged kids. They all die. The emergency-room physician appears on local TV and blames their deaths on the "super lethal" ammunition in the gun.
The husband/father of the victims hires a civil attorney to sue you for everything you own.
Are you liable?
Here's the scenario: You are carrying OC all day, and when you get home, you go into your walk-in closet (where you have your gun safe) to put the gun into the safe for the evening, but your wife is in there picking out her shoes for the evening. There's no one else in the house, so you decide to just leave the firearm on your dresser in the bedroom - you can always put it away later. It's a 1911, it's loaded with Federal Hi-Shok hollow-points, and it's cocked and locked.
While you're taking your shower, your wife brings you a beer, which tastes pretty good to you after working hard all day. After getting out of the shower, you decide to sit on the deck and have several more beers with your wife. Then your next-door neighbor stops by and wants you to come over and see his new 64-inch HDTV - especially because the Colts game is about to come on - its Monday Night Football. Your wife decides to join you. You leave the house unlocked.
You're busy drinking beer and cheering the Colts to victory over the evil Patriots when your neighbor's 18 year-old kid, who just got out of jail on a felony drug charge, decides to check out your house while you're in his dad's living room watching the game. He finds your loaded gun on the dresser, puts it in his belt, and decides he's going to take down the local Village Pantry to score some cocaine money.
While robbing the store, he's surprised by a family walking into the store. He panics, and shoots a mom and two grade-school aged kids. They all die. The emergency-room physician appears on local TV and blames their deaths on the "super lethal" ammunition in the gun.
The husband/father of the victims hires a civil attorney to sue you for everything you own.
Are you liable?
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