Bullets Beyond Recall: Defective Guns Outside US Government's Reach

[SecularMotion]

ALBUQUERQUE — The night Judy Price got shot with her own gun she’d been walking the dog on a ridge above the Rio Grande. It was two days before Thanksgiving in 2009 and chilly enough to wear her new mint-green sweat suit as she and Cody, a fluffy Samoyed, set off into her Albuquerque, New Mexico, neighborhood of flat-roofed homes and rock landscaping. Underneath her sweatshirt, Price carried her semiautomatic pistol against her belly.

When she arrived home, Price began to undress in her small walk-in closet. Her husband, Paul, a retired explosives safety engineer, was sitting in the office across the hall. He heard the bang of a gun, and she saw a flame flicker at the muzzle. The gun lay on the floor, where it fell when Price took off her sweatshirt and got caught on her Velcro holster, tearing it loose. Later, she marveled at the groove the hot bullet left on her sweatpants as it traveled up into her stomach, tore through the internal organs along the right side of her body and lodged in her liver, where it rests to this day.

Modern-day guns like Price’s Taurus PT 140 are not supposed to go off when they fall to the ground, but Price says her gun was faulty. Her lawyer, who won a 2009 jury trial involving an unintentional firing from another Taurus-brand pistol, has a broader contention: The handgun Price purchased for protection, which she carried with her on church security patrols, is one of several Taurus models with inherent design flaws.

Those claims were the basis of a lawsuit Price filed against one of the world’s largest gun manufacturers, Brazil-based Forjas Taurus and its U.S. subsidiary, Taurus International Manufacturing Inc. Price endured 12 surgeries over the three years following her injury, and she can still feel the twinge of medical mesh holding her organs in place if she bends in a certain way. She settled her suit out of court. Her only face-to-face meeting with two company representatives came in August 2011. It ended on a hollow note.

http://www.ibtimes.com/bullets-beyond-recall-defective-guns-outside-us-governments-reach-2226935

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. Brazilian guns may not have the same quality as American, Austrian, Swedish, etc

Brazilian guns? Sounds like a lot of guns!

[gejohnston]

2. I would never buy a Taurus

Rossi is OK, but not a Taurus.

[DonP]

3. I have a Taurus 605 revolver I picked up used

It was supposed to be for my daughter, but she liked an old Charter Arms Undercover .38 I had better.

It's a .357 snubbie.

It's indistinguishable from a S&W when you take the side plate off, same springs, same hammer block safety pretty much the same finish quality.

Semi's on the other hand are a lot more complex. Having shot and handled a few, including field stripping and cleaning I'd never trust a Llama, Taurus or other South American made look alike.

[gejohnston]

6. Never had one of their revolvers,

but my daughter had a PT22. She found found the spontaneous field stripping feature problematic at the range. When the slide went flying, that was the last straw.

[DonP]

7. The revolvers are pretty good S&W clones

If I saw another one for a decent price I'd pick one up.

The 605 is basically a J Frame. 5 round cylinder and Wolff Spring kits are available to play with the trigger pull a little, if you're so inclined. Doing a trigger job on them is exactly the same as on a J Frame, in fact the trigger springs are interchangeable.

I shot a Brazilian made 380 semi auto and when I took the slide off I got a nice slice on my finger. The edge on the slide was like a freakin' razor blade.

[Eleanors38]

4. Here is a situation where normal product liability law appears to be in effect...

If the poor lady suffered an injury due to an inherit fault with this pistol, then the company ought to be subject to a recall, as Remington was so subject to with its Model 700 rifles.

Despite their limitations, I stick with revolvers. But that is just me.

[ileus]

5. I believe that's one of the Taurus recalls

http://www.grandviewoutdoors.com/guns/taurus-agrees-to-39-million-settlement-in-defective-pistol-case/