{"id":3636,"date":"2015-12-02T19:56:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T19:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3636"},"modified":"2015-12-02T19:56:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T19:56:28","slug":"think-progress-the-gun-industry-watched-what-happened-to-the-tobacco-industry-and-took-notice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3636","title":{"rendered":"Think Progress: The gun industry watched what happened to the tobacco industry and took notice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"guns_and_cigarettes_by_model850-d3ayai3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A very compelling read from Think Progress<\/a> about how the\u00a0gun industry watched regulators and the legal justice system cratered Big Tobacco, prompting the gun industry to take steps to make sure the same thing couldn’t happen to it.<\/p>\n

Big Tobacco, while still vastly wealthy, is not nearly the\u00a0political powerhouse\u00a0that it was 25 years ago. The adult smoking rate has dropped from 42 percent to 17 percent in the U.S. over the past 50 years, smoking advertising has been seriously curtailed and few workplaces allow smoking anymore. Two things helped destroy Big Tobacco’s political influence — regulations and lawsuits. Big Tobacco fought, which minimal success (some, but not much), smoking bans, first on airplanes (a battle the industry ultimately lost) and then in restaurants and then in bars. \u00a0Now, more than 30 states have total smoking bans, another handful of states have smoking bans in restaurants and even in those states without smoking bans, most major cities have banned smoking in bars and restaurants.<\/p>\n

\"tobacco-italics-1125x620\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the courtrooms, Big Tobacco really got spanked. The industry won lawsuit after lawsuit for years until through the discovery process in many of these lawsuits, internal industry documents were released showing that Big Tobacco absolutely knew since the 1950s that cigarettes caused cancer and were physically addictive and showed that for decades, the industry has been trying to market to teenagers.<\/p>\n

Because of the release of these documents, Big Tobacco actually started losing lawsuits. A bunch of state’s attorneys general filed suit because of the costs of smoking to their Medicaid programs, and rather than fight these lawsuits and potentially lose, Big Tobacco agreed to the $280 billion Master Settlement agreement in 1998. Today, the tobacco industry continues to get nailed with lawsuits, a lot of them in Florida, costing them millions in legal fees and eventual settlements (though the industry is well-known for dragging these settlements out for years through appeals, people have received multi-million jury settlements.).<\/p>\n

\"30aa6e25-9650-49e2-85fa-11fa3050b387-620x372\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The gun industry sat back and watched and took action to make sure the same thing couldn’t happen to it. The gun industry was facing similar types of class-action lawsuits which eventually crippled Big Tobacco politically.<\/p>\n

From the Think Progress article:<\/p>\n

Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, told ThinkProgress that the NRA was \u201cvery afraid of the parallel between gun litigation and tobacco litigation, so it preempted that.\u201d Through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) \u2014 the secretive<\/a> free-market lobbying group that brings together conservative politicians and major corporate interests including the tobacco<\/a> and gun lobbies<\/a> \u2014 it pushed a \u201cDefense of Free Market and Public Safety Resolution<\/a>\u201d to hurt Smith & Wesson\u2019s ability to sell to law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cALEC helped to try to punish the one component of the industry that agreed to these measures,\u201d Graves recalled, discouraging local police \u201cfrom buying guns from Smith & Wesson \u2014 for daring to go along with safety [measures] designed to keep kids safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the NRA\u2019s preferred candidate<\/a>, George W. Bush, was inaugurated in January 2001, his new HUD secretary Mel Martinez quickly ended<\/a> the department\u2019s involvement in the lawsuits (the NRA strongly endorsed<\/a> him three years later in his campaign for U.S. Senate in Florida). ALEC<\/a> and the NRA<\/a> worked at the same time to successfully encourage many states to prohibit local lawsuits<\/a> against the gun and ammo industries.<\/p>\n

Next, the NRA and its Congressional allies set about eliminating the threat of state or local action, once and for all. In 2005, Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act<\/a>, which effectively shielded<\/a> the gun industry from legal liability when their products are used in criminal and unlawful activities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, the gun industry made sure to get legislation passed to make sure something like the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement or the Engle case in Florida could ever happen to it.<\/p>\n

From the article:<\/p>\n

A decade later, the law has been used to stop virtually all efforts<\/a> to hold gun companies liable in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that, had the really powerful litigation run its course, we would have had the same success on guns\u201d as on tobacco, Graves said. \u201cThat tobacco litigation was historic\u2026 They were able to make some substantial progress and change the future \u2014 having information out there, showing how evilly the tobacco companies were behaving. So there was an effort to stop that for guns, which have huge number of deaths and injuries. We haven\u2019t seen the same progress as you would have had these been allowed to go forward. \u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the industry didn’t stop there. The gun industry also through legislation clamped down on research into gun violence. It was scientific research done by the Centers for Disease Control that helped break Big Tobacco’s power.<\/p>\n

From the article:<\/p>\n

Thanks to a 1996 law, pushed by the NRA and one of its life members<\/a>, then-Rep. Jay Dickey (R-AR), the federal government does not do<\/a> the same kind of in-depth research on gun violence and its prevention. The \u201cDickey Amendment\u201d stipulated that no funds \u201cmade available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.\u201d A 2012 appropriations law put similar restrictions on NIH funding<\/a> for that year.<\/p>\n

Though the NRA claims this was not its intent<\/a>, the effect of the amendment was not simply that the CDC did not advocate for gun control, it stopped the Centers from doing almost any research on gun violence. And, according to a 2011 New York Times story, before the few remaining firearm-related studies funded by the CDC get published, the NRA gets a heads up \u201cas a courtesy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ted Alcorn, research director at Everytown for Gun Safety, told ThinkProgress in an email that his organization\u2019s research has found that \u201cafter the gun lobby\u2019s attacks on the Centers for Disease Control in the mid-1990s, the agency\u2019s funding for public health research on gun violence fell more than 95 percent and publications in the field dried up.\u201d Though groups like Everytown have worked to fill the gap, the lack of federal research has made progress on gun safety even more challenging.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article also points out that while most doctors will talk to patients about their smoking, laws are being passed (Florida) prohibiting doctors from asking patients if they have a gun in the house. And it points out that while the majority of states and vast majority of cities have smoking bans, more and more states are passing laws allowing the open carrying of guns. Really, there’s never been a better time than now to be a gun owner in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Thanks, unfortunately, to the lessons learned by the gun industry while watching the gutting of the tobacco industry’s political power.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A very compelling read from Think Progress about how the\u00a0gun industry watched regulators and the legal justice system cratered Big Tobacco, prompting the gun industry to take steps to make sure the same thing couldn’t happen to it. Big Tobacco, while still vastly wealthy, is not nearly the\u00a0political powerhouse\u00a0that it was 25 years ago. The … Continue reading Think Progress: The gun industry watched what happened to the tobacco industry and took notice<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,746,212,73],"tags":[584,748,747,616],"class_list":["post-3636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-tobacco","category-gun-industry","category-tobacco-industry-2","category-tobacco-litigation","tag-big-tobacco","tag-gun-industry","tag-guns","tag-tobacco-litigation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/guns_and_cigarettes_by_model850-d3ayai3.jpg?fit=2500%2C1500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-WE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2957,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2957","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":0},"title":"Higher taxes? 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A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British-American Tobacco"","block_context":{"text":"British-American Tobacco","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=451"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Tobacco.png?fit=747%2C699&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Tobacco.png?fit=747%2C699&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Tobacco.png?fit=747%2C699&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Tobacco.png?fit=747%2C699&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":495,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=495","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":1},"title":"How Big Tobacco got away with the Crime of the Century","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"March 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It all began in 1994. 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This is the result of lawsuit filed by the Justice Department way back in 1999. A court ruled back in 2006 that the industry had to admit its wrongdoings, but Altria and RJR and British American Tobacco have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Justice Department"","block_context":{"text":"Justice Department","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=211"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/tobacco-ad3-e1512168913715.jpg?fit=757%2C451&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/tobacco-ad3-e1512168913715.jpg?fit=757%2C451&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/tobacco-ad3-e1512168913715.jpg?fit=757%2C451&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/tobacco-ad3-e1512168913715.jpg?fit=757%2C451&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3933,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3933","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":3},"title":"Big Tobacco files litigation, raises $17 million to fight California tobacco tax","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"August 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Big Tobacco has already filed bullcrap litigation attempting to get a ballot measure removed from the November 2016 ballot that would raise the California cigarette tax by $2 a\u00a0pack.\u00a0And on top of that, the industry is planning to spend at least $17 million in order to defeat the measure. 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Gates is contributing through the Bill and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bill Gates"","block_context":{"text":"Bill Gates","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=472"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/gates-bloomberg.jpg?fit=580%2C378&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/gates-bloomberg.jpg?fit=580%2C378&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/gates-bloomberg.jpg?fit=580%2C378&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3104,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3104","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":5},"title":"USA TODAY story: Does Big Tobacco desire the marijuana market?","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"April 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but here is another article on the same subject from USA Today -- the fear that Big Tobacco will take over the legal marijuana business. 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