Re: Liability...the thread that will not die..

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Steve Rosenthal by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <sdrosen-at-cwia-dot-com>

Subject: Guns & Doctors ??????

Number of physicians in the US: 700,000.
Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year: 120,000.
Accidental deaths per physician.... 0.171
(U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services)

Number of gun owners in the US: 80,000,000
Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) 1,500.
Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.0000188
Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun
owners. Not everyone has a gun, but everyone has at least one doctor. Please
alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this
gets out of hand.

I have withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear that the shock could
cause people to seek medical aid.

______________________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 9:41 PM
Subject: Liability...the thread that will not die..


> Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>
>
>
> Sure, lots of obviously dangerous things are sold, on E-bay, and
otherwise.
>  Consider, though, the difference:
>
> Roughly half the housholds in America have one or more guns (or, at least,
> there are half as many guns as there are households... I don't recall the
> basis of the statistic, but the net is, there's a lot)
>
> Every household has sharp kitchen knives
>
> A tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the households has HV equipment of any
kind,
> lethal or not.
>
>
> Point #1:
>
> A "reasonable man" would be expected to know that knives, guns, ladders,
> lawnmowers, power saws, etc. are dangerous.  It's not so clear that an
> average "reasonable man" would have the same level of knowledge about a
> tesla coil.
>
> Point #2:
>
> The huge number of folks possessing kitchen knives and various and sundry
> firearms means that not only are most folks familiar with them, their
> hazards, and their use, but that the probability of them being outlawed or
> restricted excessively is quite low. This is definitely not the case for
HV
> equipment.  No congressman or senator or assemblyman or city council
> member, etc. is going to worry about the re-election impact of banning
> tesla coils.  They would have to be insane to contemplate banning or
> restricting kitchen knives.
>
>
>
> > forgive my nievety of the law, but do gun manufacturors get sued when
> > > someone is inadvertantly shot?
>
>
>