Know that joke about lawyers? The one about how 10,000 lawyers under the sea is a good start? I’ll bet the joke is being told as a serious hoped-for response down at the Glock factory in Georgia because of the lawsuit filed yesterday in New York.

The lawsuit accuses Glock of marketing their guns in a way which violates a New York State law that holds companies responsible if the use of their products creates a ‘public nuisance,’ which in this particular case was the nuisance created by a guy who walked onto a New York City subway car in April and started blasting all over the place. One of the victims of that senseless act is the plaintiff in this suit.

What’s interesting to me in this legal action is that the defendants are both Glock USA, and the parent company overseas. Which means that every foreign gun manufacturer who views the American gun market as a place to sell their products may now rethink their plans. And since most of the semi-automatic pistols which are used in gun assaults are made by foreign companies like Sig, Beretta, and Glock, or are manufactured overseas by American companies like Springfield Arms, this lawsuit could have repercussions which go far beyond any challenge to Gun-nut Nation until now.

The truth is that for all the talk about a new gun law that will keep guns out of the ‘wrong’ hands, there has never been one piece of research which actually proves that any legal gun-control law makes much of a difference in terms of reducing how many people are injured or killed with guns.

Today we learn that the legal team which sued Remington after Sandy Hook has begun a process which may end up in a lawsuit against the company – Daniel Defense – that made the gun used in last week’s slaughter at the Robb Elementary School. If legal suits can find gun makers liable for how their assault rifles were used to kill and injure both adults and kids, guess what?

The same kinds of lawsuits can be used to go after companies like Glock, Sig, Beretta, S&W, Springfield, and all the other gun makers whose products are used in the more than 125,000 deaths and serious injuries which are caused each year with their guns.

When all is said and done, nothing works better to change the dynamics of any product market than a situation in which producers know that the product they are making and selling can cost them more time, trouble, and money than what the product is worth.

Remember a wonderful candy called Chunky?  Remember how many Chunky Candy Bars you could find on the candy shelf after stories began to appear which claimed that the candy made you sick?

So, maybe instead of all those lawyers at the bottom of the sea, we should dump all the assault rifles somewhere far offshore.

If the government gave everyone a thousand bucks for their AR, the total cost would be about 15 billion bucks. Right now, the federal budget is $7 trillion. So, adding another 15 billion is chump change, especially what you figure we’ll save from not having to bear the medical and emotional costs of the kids and adults shot with those guns.

And while we’re at it, we can also start dumping the Sigs, the Glocks, the Berettas and all those other handguns which are about as ‘sporting’ a gun as Leonard Mermelstein is a dog.

Leonard Mermelstein is my cat. You can see him right here: Catalog | TeeTee Press