Rou

Imagine if you will, that you live in Mississippi. I know... I know.. bear with me. You live in Mississippi and you're a hunter. Now, let's say in this hypothetical situation that you get eaten by a bear. That sucks. The date doesn't really seem important in this situation does it? Turns out, it is a little important. If it's before June 30th of this year, all the normal events occur. If it's after, well... things become odd.

You see, if you're a hunter, eaten by a bear, after June 30th of this year, your official cause of death may not be released into the public record. A new law makes it a secret. But it has to be a hunter A truck driver gets eaten by a cougar on the side of the road? No big deal.

You're going to ask why, right? I honestly don't understand it. But here goes the defective reasoning. The idea is that some ambulance chasing lawyer will search out public records and newspaper headlines and discover the event. Then he will somehow try to sue gun companies for culpability in the accident.

Uh huh. Yeah, that’s pretty flimsy, in my opinion.

It’s even more flimsy when you research more and discover that Mississippi already has a law that prevents that type of lawsuit.

The public doesn’t gain anything, but it does lose something. You see, headlines and news of hunting accidents raises awareness of the potential dangers and how to prevent them. It can cause the public to push for better safety training before a license is issued. It can tell people not to go walking around in the woods because there is a hungry bear in the woods. Publicity of the events has a number of good consequences. And as far as I can tell, there are no negatives. Even to the gun companies this seems directed to ‘protect’. They’re safe from lawsuits regardless of the publicity.

Politicians make my head hurt. They really do. I need a drink.