A quick off-topic question

[IceMountain]

Soc,
I 'own' and operate a community message board in Wisconsin.  If I allow the sale of guns on the message board do I have any liability in doing so in the event someone is injured, killed, or the gun is used in criminal activity?

Thanks!

[socrateaser]

>Soc,
>I 'own' and operate a community message board in Wisconsin.
>If I allow the sale of guns on the message board do I have any
>liability in doing so in the event someone is injured, killed,
>or the gun is used in criminal activity?

Gun control issues are heavily dependent on WI and Federal law, most of which I am only vaguely familiar with as applies to guns.

Under Constitutional Law, you are a republisher of anything posted on that board, which could make you liable for false statements made, unless you use reasonable care to monitor posts and delete those which might reasonably cause injury to others.

Also, as persons have a right to bear arms, and to freedom of speech, there are constraints on just how much limitation and liabilty the gov. can apply to personal freedoms.

However, here's an (extreme) example of how you could potentially be held liable by an individual for negligence.

You let anyone post anything on your site and never monitor the posts. Someone posts that they want a gun to "kill their spouse because he/she is taking them to the cleaners in a divorce." Someone sells the poster a gun, and the poster kills his/her spouse.

You are sued for negligence/wrongful death, on the theory that you have a duty to the plaintiff/victim/public, to reasonably monitor your site for death threats, that you failed to do so, that your failure was a substantial factor in the death of the victim, which caused injury to the plaintif, and that it was reasonably foreseeable in advance that such an injury could occur.

Therefore, you are jointly liable for the economic and emotional loss to the plaintiff.

So, the trick is to be reasonable about how you monitor your site. Doing nothing is not an option. Also, you may want to purchase liability insurance.

As for criminal liability, that's unlikely unless there is a specific criminal statute which would make your actions expressly unlawful.

However, if you were found "criminally negligent," i.e., that your failure to monitor your board was such a "gross deviation from the standard of care" ordinarily due one person to another or the public, that it is fair to hold you liable for not monitoring your board (as shown in the above extreme fact pattern), then you could be found to have accomplice liability, because you aided, abetted, assisted and/or encouraged the commission of a crime.

Which would make you jointly liable for its commission -- in this case potentially 1st Degree Murder, because the defendant specifically intended to kill another person (malice aforethought), and the defendant premeditated and deliberated on the killing before carrying it out.

A lot of your criminal liability would be based on the prevailing attitude in the community where the crime was prosecuted, because if it's in some outback where the jury is made up of card carrying NRA members, your case would never go to trial. Whereas, if you're in an extremely urban area composed of card carrying democrats living on or dispensing publc assistance, the jury is likely to see you as being the "real" purpetrator of the crime (along with the gun and ammunitions manufacturer, and probably the drafters of the Bill of Rights, too! ;-)).

So, that's the "worst case" scenario. What's the odds? Is it worth the risk?

I dunno, you tell me.

[IceMountain]

n/m