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

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

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?