OA599: Our Massive Gun Problem – What Can We Do?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:01:18 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 599, one away from the big 600. I'm Thomas, that's Andrew. How you doing?

0:01:27 Andrew: I'm fantastic, Thomas. How are you?

0:01:29 Thomas: Well, the news has not been great. Yeah.

0:01:30 Andrew: Yeah, I'm I'm fantastic about doing the show.

0:01:33 Thomas: Yeah, true. Me too. Especially 600. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We have some fun stuff planned for episode 600. We also have some very not fun stuff in terms of the news. I am mentally incapable of covering the shooting in any detail. I just can't even look at it. I can't handle it. But fortunately, that's not really what our show does anyway. Andrew has some great deep dives for us on what we can do about the problems with guns, with police. Least. I mean, there's a couple of great deep dives planned that I'm very much excited to learn about. And. There's also a Supreme Court decision that, innocent you people, I think, can just be shot we or don't have time to get to.

0:02:13 Andrew: So let me kind of give you the the lay of the land here. The Uvalde shooting, I think, highlighted the importance for our show to talk about what we can do concretely in this political environment where I know a lot of folks have lost a lot of hope, uh, so we're going to talk about that both this week and next week. That means I had a deep dive planned on Shinn versus Ramirez, which is the Supreme Court decision you've heard about, in which the howler monkey conservative majority has declared, uh, that uh, it offends the state to have post-conviction inquiry into whether you received ineffective assistance of of counsel, even in capital cases, right?

0:02:28 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because it'll hurt the state's feelings if they don't get to kill somebody. So So it's, you know, it makes sense.

0:03:01 Andrew: Yeah. So that's gonna get pushed off at least to episode 601 or 602. I apologize, we have the dreadful ruling allowing Ted Cruz to keep his campaign contribution. So there's a lot of bad stuff coming out of the Supreme Court. One I of the things that you you and I have talked about is trying to make sure that we are pairing, informing you about terrible things, things with suggesting how there's a potential mechanism for change. And, you're excited about that component of what we're going to do. I also want to say, if you have not listened to, we have three episodes of OA that talk about the radical transformation of how guns were treated by the Supreme Court and in law that began in the 2000s

0:03:17 Thomas: Oh, my God.

0:03:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:04:02 Andrew: Right, so yeah you know, a tenth of our nation's history, and if you are, you're in your 20s and 30s, you've grown up with this, uh, nonsense in the background, and we demonstrate how that was crafted out of whole cloth.

0:04:02 Thomas: Not that long ago.

0:04:12 Thomas: Yeah. And conservatives have tricked the country into thinking this is how it's always been, or this is what our founding fathers with their powdered wigs wanted to be. That deep dive, DC v. Heller, fundamental to opening arguments history, one, first of the ones we did. Right. It was where I was like, OK, this is going to be a great show. We're learning unbelievable stuff. I can't believe this isn't more well-known, how radical that change was. So yeah, definitely, if you never heard those, go check those out. And we'll be in bell-bottoms and mustaches, and we'll still have a positive view of the world and stuff. It'll be interesting to hear. Nostalgia.

0:04:32 Andrew: Yeah yeah uh there is a little bit of that, but yeah, that is episodes 21, 22, and then we revisit in 161, so I would listen in those order, uh, that will give give you kind of the background about how this Supreme Court that claims to value history and tradition above all else, completely ignored history and tradition to make up and endorse radical right-wing scholarship on guns. So in the background, I want to focus on even in this post DC v. Heller environment, what we can do concretely. So this week, we're going to talk about suing the gun companies. Now that involves changing federal law, but I don't think that's going to be as hard as you think, right?

Yes, Republicans vote in lockstep against anything that touches on guns. We saw that happen just today with a domestic terrorism bill. Every single Republican, including Susan Collins, voted against it. Um, you really need to win two more seats this election cycle? And all of a sudden, that landscape changes quite a bit. Next week, we're going to talk about something that is, I think, even more approachable, and that is how a change at your state level, right? Something the Supreme Court cannot, this right-wing activist Supreme Court, cannot touch. Something that Mitch McConnell cannot block, something over which there is no filibuster, can undo the pernicious effects of a case called Castle Rock versus Gonzalez. If that sounds

0:04:52 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:25 Andrew: Familiar to you, a lot of outlets have been talking about in the Uvalde shooting how the Supreme Court has said, well, you know, the Supreme Court has said cops don't really have to do their job and they don't have to defend you. We're going to explain.

0:06:37 Thomas: They don't have to know the law. Boy, not much is expected from police officers, is it?

0:06:43 Andrew: We're gonna explain what that ruling is. And the, this is not a one weird trick. This is what the Supreme court was telling us to do at the state level that we just never did. So real activism on coming up on these next two episodes.

0:07:00 Thomas: Can't wait, but let's get to today's episode.

0:07:03 Clip: Down the law, down the law.

0:07:07 Thomas: First up, we get some Elon Musk updates. Boy, that genius, I, he's just what, Tony Stark? I saw a headline, I don't know if it was just facetious or real, that said like he's lost 69 billion dollars. Nice. Yeah.

0:07:21 Andrew: I have seen the same headlines. Lines It's hard to say because so much of his wealth is tied up in multiplying the market price for Tesla, which has been fluctuating rapidly, uh, over the past couple of weeks, you know, times his shares in Tesla.

0:07:37 Thomas: Can.

0:07:38 Andrew: But, um, this is a really stunning news that has missed most of the news outlets. It's there in a couple of business, uh, journals, I guess, aimed at people who are investing in either Tesla or Twitter. Two days ago, Twitter filed an amendment to its Schedule 13D disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We talked about that particular disclosure back on episode 590. This is Twitter telling the SEC, hey, that deal, that merger deal whereby effectively Elon Musk is going to buy out the existing shares of Twitter and take it private. We've changed the terms of that. We're attaching a letter from Elon Musk that explains how we're changing those terms. And I want to point out, this confirms some of the allegations that were raised in the Orlando Police Pension Fund lawsuit that we covered in episode 595.

0:08:31 Thomas: You. Remind me what the status of that is, it just takes. Time to get going.

0:08:31 Andrew: Yeah, that case was filed on May 6th. Elon Musk is an out-of-state defendant, So he is not required to answer yet. I checked the docket this morning. So no Progress on that case. But remember, that case said that Elon Musk failed to disclose interests that he had that count as technically owning shares under Delaware corporate law. And one of them was with Jack Dorsey. And, you put a pin in that as we read this letter that Elon Musk wrote from himself to himself to describe how the financing deal to buy Twitter was going to change. So here's what has been disclosed to the SEC. On April 25th, 2022, the reporting person, that is the borrower, Elon Musk, received a commitment letter from Morgan Stanley and other lenders to provide $12.5 billion in margin loans to fund a portion of the purchase price of the merger.

0:08:35 Thomas: Okay. Gotcha. So.

0:09:37 Andrew: We knew that already. On May 4th, the reporting person allowed a portion of the margin loan commitments to expire and committed to provide an additional $6.25 billion in equity financing. So half of the margin loans. The language here is permitted to expire. What that really means is was no longer able to comply with the terms. Exactly as we told you would happen.

0:10:05 Thomas: Because. The stock. Price is so low, right?

0:10:07 Andrew: Because. The stock price of.

0:10:07 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:10:07 Andrew: Tesla went so low and the Tesla stock was pledged as collateral for those margin loan commitments. So half of it expired on May 4th, two days ago, the rest of it expired and. So Elon Musk now has to make up that additional 12 and a half billion dollars in personal funds. Interestingly enough, Elon Musk, does, for, we want to talk about him, uh, being Tony Stark, he does not seem to know how to spell the word principle when, when it applies to a financial transaction.

0:10:23 Thomas: Hmm.

0:10:42 Thomas: Wait.

0:10:43 Andrew: Yeah, this is, he spells it like, I have many, know, you important principles that guide, but anyway, instead of putting up $21 billion of personal funds, Elon Musk is now required to put up $33.5 billion in personal funds. Here's how that's going to happen. The reporting person is seeking, and again, that's Musk, is seeking and may receive additional financing commitments to fund portions of the total merger consideration, which may replace portions of the financing commitments. In addition, the reporting person is having and will continue to have discussions with certain existing shareholders of common stock, including Jack Dorsey, prior regarding the possibility of contributing such shares as of common stock to the financing.

0:11:31 Andrew: Entity at or immediately prior to to the closing of the merger in order to retain an equity investment in that company or Twitter following the completion of the merge in lieu of receiving merger consideration in the merger. Let me break down both of those because I realize there's a little bit of legalese there. So. The first says I know

0:11:50 Thomas: I just. Heard. The. TV. Static fuzz, that oh. I just realized our kids will never, I think I've said this before, they'll never. Know the joy of the TV fuzz static or the misery of it. That's.

0:11:56 Andrew: The Cosmic.

0:11:59 Thomas: Weird.

0:12:00 Andrew: Microwave.

0:12:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:00 Andrew: Background radiation.

0:12:02 Thomas: Wow. They'll. Never get to feel that cosmic background. How will they know where the universe came from, geez, our kids. They're, you know, tough. Anyway.

0:12:02 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's It's gonna be Rough. So that first half says, OK, I just said I've committed to putting in thirty three and a half billion dollars of my own money. But really, I am also trying to go to lenders to raise as much additional money as I can. Now, mind you, he's already raised twenty one and a half billion dollars from lenders. So as we said in episode 590, even for the richest man in the world, it's hard to go back to lenders and be like, hey, what's another, you know, 13 billion dollars between Friends? Yeah, it is. And I think, gives us some confidence in what we told you in Episode 590, which is we're rapidly reaching the point where Musk is not comfortable because the the only way in in which he could raise $33.5 billion is by liquidating his Tesla stock, which, significant chunk of his Tesla stock, which, by the way, will drive the stock price even lower.

0:12:41 Thomas: Yeah. It's a lot of money.

0:13:08 Thomas: Yeah, even lower. And liquidating it when it's at, yeah, lows is not what you want to have to do. You'd rather at least have liquidated, yeah. Back when it was a thousand bucks or whatever.

0:13:14 Andrew: You buy it when it's like that. Yep. So that's the first half, which says, look, he may have said publicly, "I'm going to, I'll take." Oh, yeah, sure. I'll take on that additional 12 and a half billion. He's scrambling trying to find additional lenders. Then the second half says, and in addition to that, he's trying to reduce, effectively reduce, the purchase price by taking current stockholders of Twitter, including Jack Dorsey, again mentioned by name in this SEC disclosure, and saying, hey, instead of my buying out your shares, why don't we change the arrangements so that you will have private shares of the new merged entity, right? So, I'm not going to pay you $54.20 a share for the millions of shares that you own. Instead, I'm going to give you shares in the new entity. That's the idea. Take it private. Same, but renegotiate the deal so that certain large shareholders don't have to be bought out. And that would then reduce the purchase price. Now, all of this, again, requires amending the merger agreement, requires making additional disclosures, requires a Jack Dorsey saying, yeah, no, I

0:14:02 Thomas: Huh. Yeah. I'll give up some free money in order to.

0:14:41 Andrew: He's Right now, if he does nothing, he's entitled either to fifty four dollars and twenty cents a share for all of his shares or to whatever happens to Twitter in the event that Musk backs out, and, you know, has to pay a billion dollar penalty or what have you. So, Takeaways, the margin loans are dead. Tesla stock continues to be down, uh, 30 plus percent, right? It hit a low of 624, was trading at over a thousand dollars a share, right? So not hard to figure out how much it falls when That's The Denominator

0:14:57 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice of him to have a nice round number for us to be able to calculate percentages.

0:15:12 Andrew: Yep. As of this morning, it was in the middle of a slight rebound, like this. This public news to investors drove both Tesla and Twitter stock up, but by no means up in any sort of meaningful direction. So Tesla made a slight rebound to about $700 as of this record. Twitter still shows serious market doubts. And I just want to hit that again, because the day the merger was announced, it was trading at $51. Twitter was trading at $51.70. That's basically 95% to 99% confidence that the deal is going to go through, right? Because remember, whatever you buy Twitter at today, you can cash out at $54.20 a share in October,

0:15:57 Thomas: Yeah. There is the time value of money calculation that I can't remember if we did last time. But so that could that indicate a higher certainty based on that. Because you'd only you discount it. But but that aside, it was a high percent.

0:16:01 Andrew: Yep. Yep, yep. That is right. Right. When we did our first discussion on April 28th to 29, it had fallen to 49, and we indicated that, you know, that that did not illustrate complete market confidence, right? That's building in a 10 risk or so that the deal doesn't go through. On Monday, May 9th, it began its free fall which dropped Twitter stock into the 30s. It hit a low of 36. It's been hovering around 38, and today it rebounded to 39. So when you see Twitter rebounds, okay, but but run the numbers in your head. Take a look at it, at the point in which you think that this deal will 100% go through, right? If you bought Twitter at 39 today, day, and you can cash out at 54-20 in October, that is a 33% profit.

0:16:24 Thomas: Mm hmm. Wow. Yeah.

0:17:02 Thomas: No

0:17:02 Andrew: Right, Yeah, so you would be no reason not to do that, other than. Yep.

0:17:02 Thomas: Kidding. Wow。. And and Not only that, if the sale doesn't go through, it's not as though Twitter dissolves. Like, you still would own, the worst case is you own this Twitter stock. So that that seems like really bad news, that's because that's almost a gamble that is worth taking, because worst case you have Twitter stock, but maybe the stock was that overvalued, and and Musk was paying that much more than he should have per share, care.

0:17:28 Andrew: It, Could, could be. Do not take financial advice from this podcast, but, uh, do take, I think, the analysis of how what the market is telling us about the legal analysis that that we brought to bear on the deal, which is, um, there's still a tremendous amount of hurdles that that are in place for for this to go through, and if you think, as we do unabashedly, that Elon Musk buying Twitter and taking it completely private is a terrible idea, uh, there's reasons for some optimism. So update on that story

0:18:01 Thomas: Yeah, I feel like this deal is not happening. Like if you were to put a percentage on it, what are you feeling like now?

0:18:02 Andrew: Uh would, I think 50-50 is is probably where where I would be, right, I'm not buying Twitter stock at 39, that's for sure.

0:18:12 Thomas: But at a certain point, I mean, as we talked about, if he backs out, it's a billion dollar penalty. But if he's overpaying by significant amounts, I mean, at what point is he just like, all right, well, I'll just break this, take pay the billion and stop losing money, right?

0:18:26 Andrew: Yeah, no, I think that's right, and we saw the public news of, you know, well, the deal is on hold until I can figure out how many bots there are, what, you know, that's correct. Like, there is always the, I'm going to take my ball and go, and just get out of this, this nightmare, and if you You, again, you've worked in the industry. I'm not giving financial advice to Elon Musk here, but it seems to me that he has to have somebody around him that's going to say, okay, you now need to sell 50% more stock than you thought you were going to sell multiplied by the premium of you're selling it at a 30% discount, right?

0:18:34 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:07 Thomas: What about Elon Musk makes you think he has has people around him giving him good advice.

0:19:12 Andrew: Well, an excellent point. So but we'll continue to watch. We'll continue to update you on this story. I thought I thought it was worth worth highlighting something that has made the financial news, but but really kind of slipped below the radar of the political news.

0:19:28 Clip: We hear a lot from Senator Sanders about the greed and recklessness of Wall Street, and I agree, we've got to hold Wall Street accountable.

0:19:43 Thomas: Main segment time. Part one of two. What can we actually do about gun violence, even in today's political climate? What's our part one?

0:19:51 Andrew: This is assuming even, even sensible gun control legislation at the federal level is dead, right? Expanded background checks, uh, banning the sale and interstate commerce of high capacity magazines, you things that command like an 80 to 85 percent approval from the general public. I'm assuming we can't do any of that. Here's the thing that we can do that, again, probably requires electing one to two Democrats in this session, so might be good motivation for that, and require somebody that is a good friend of the show and a hero to many listeners to take on a leadership role that he's promised. And it is this, repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005.

0:20:41 Andrew: This is codified at 15 U.S.C. Section 7902, and it says a qualified civil liability action may not be brought in any federal or state court, and all of the current existing lawsuits as of October 26, 2005, shall be dismissed. What's a qualified Civil Liability Action? That is defined as a civil action against a gun manufacturer or seller or a trade association, in case you're wondering to whom this was also an enormous giveaway, resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a qualified product, that means a firearm, by the person or by a third party manufacturers, gun sellers, and trade associations that promote gun at the NRA.

0:21:14 Thomas: Interesting.

0:21:25 Thomas: Yeah? So it protects gun companies. It protects... That sounds like the NRA.

0:21:35 Thomas: I did not realize that was in it. I do remember this when Bernie Sanders supported this and Hillary Clinton didn't

0:21:36 Andrew: Yeah. Let's talk about Bernie Sanders. While in Congress, voted for this bill twice, 2003 when it failed, 2005 when it passed, he joined a bunch of blue dog southern Democrats that were, you know, a part of the decaying Bill Clinton coalition at the time. He has since said that that was a mistake, and has pledged to repeal it. Yes, isn't and so I don't want to write that we're not about like whose fault this, that this is an ideal opportunity for Bernie Sanders to lead on this issue because, because this is an area, quite frankly, where he's less progressive than many Democratic candidates. And if you're a Bernie Sanders supporter who's progressive, now would be an ideal time to to remind him of that. I really, really think this would be a historic moment for Bernie Sanders to come together publicly, say, yeah, I was wrong when I voted for this bill, and and I want to lead the charge to repeal it.

So what would repealing this bill do? Tell you a little bit less than you might think, right, but it would still be an outstanding first step for the reasons that I'm going to explain. So first, if you're wondering, like, what what kinds of civil actions could you bring against gun manufacturers? Well, historically. Historically,

0:21:58 Thomas: Right. Oh, he has. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:23:01 Andrew: People have brought three different kinds of claims, and I'm going to pass lightly over the first two, not because they don't maybe deserve their own episodes, but in my view, they're as not strong claims? The right? First is for deceptive or unfair trade practices, right? And that has to do with the marketing of these weapons, right. And we've seen lawsuits about this. If you have ever seen any advertisement for any semi-automatic, uh, assault weapon.

0:23:28 Thomas: Yeah, we covered this, didn't we? I remember you telling me some of the examples.

0:23:30 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, they are, basically, uh, encouraging military cosplay. Yeah.

0:23:37 Thomas: Get your man card. Yeah, all that stuff.

0:23:38 Andrew: Yep. Right, not going to talk about that one, but but you can't bring those lawsuits right now. Those right are effectively prohibited by the PLCAA.

0:23:46 Thomas: I thought when we covered that, the the ads were so bad that they were liable in that

0:23:51 Andrew: I should say, as a caveat, there are arguments that it does not apply to certain kinds of of marketing, right, because it does not fall under the resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of the product, right? The idea is this is just about how it is sold by the manufacturer. Courts have not really weighed in on that with finality, so it's it's possible that that those claims are still live. The relationship between that and the PLCAA is complicated, right? There's an argument that those kinds of lawsuits are not resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of the firearm. We've already covered that. I'm going to skip over that one for now. Okay.

0:24:36 Andrew: Second category of lawsuits that are plainly prohibited and were dismissed out when the PLCAA passed in 2005 are public nuisance claims, and we've talked about that in connection with the opiates crisis or the opioid crisis, right? This had some promise in the early 2000s. A public nuisance says you have created a condition that endangers public health, safety and welfare, and now it's your responsibility to clean it up, right? And certainly the proliferation, recuperation of deadly guns on the streets, I think is quite plausibly a condition that endangers public health, safety, and welfare. And then the question is, you can you hold the gun manufacturers responsible for cleaning it up? We're not going to talk about that one either, right?

0:24:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:24 Thomas: So Wait, was that allowed by that statute or No, prohibited.

0:25:26 Andrew: That was prohibited and those suits were dismissed, right?That was part of the protection that this law brought. The other kinds of suits that that I think continue to hold promise are products liability lawsuits, right? And one is, if you're, if you're thinking about it as a lawyer, you might say, yeah, of course. If you're thinking about it just as a citizen activist, you might be like, well, explain that one for me. So I'm going to explain it. You, right, think. Think of products liability as Black & Decker manufactures a chainsaw. A chainsaw is a pretty dangerous thing. But now imagine that, like, because of the way it's assembled, one chainsaw out of every 20 will throw the chain, you, after five minutes of use. Right. And that thrown chain can obviously injure or kill the user or people around it.

0:25:28 Thomas: Okay. Oh. Man. Yeah.

0:26:17 Andrew: Right. In a way that you don't expect. So even though a chainsaw itself is a very, very dangerous product, you could imagine problems with the product that make it even more dangerous than you would think. And now you're probably thinking, well, I don't know, that still kind of sounds like guns are a stretch, chainsaws intended to, you know, cut down a tree. Guns intended to be shot.

0:26:38 Thomas: It's almost like, oh, I cut down this tree and it fell on me, can I sue the chainsaw company? It's kind of like that, wait sort

0:26:39 Andrew: Right? Yeah, think I that's right. And so right. And I'm to walk through. I don't think that it's the case. And I'm gonna start off with the fact that products has been defined expansively by the courts over the past 50 years, right? So it's not just chainsaws, but there have been cases holding products liability for intangibles like gasoline, and even for you Let me not say intangibles. On, okay, that that's good, that's good.

0:27:05 Thomas: Wait, gasoline is an intangible? Abstract

0:27:09 Andrew: So Products liability has been expanded to apply to pets, even though we tend not to think of a pet as a product, to real estate and

0:27:09 Thomas: Concept known as gasoline.

0:27:20 Thomas: Yeah, I bought this pet tiger and it bit me. I want to sue the tiger company.

0:27:25 Andrew: And even to intellectual property, right? And there's a a prominent case about navigational charts, right? And think about like a defect in the navigational chart could cause you to crash your boat. So the trend is toward a broad definition of products. Who do you sue? In products liability actions, you can actually sue anybody along the chain, right. So you can sue the manufacturer, you Can sue manufacturer of component parts, You can sue the manufacturer that assembles those parts together. You can see the wholesaler and you can even sue the retail store owner. Right. This is one of these where we've talked about this in T3B where the laws. And again, this is derived from common law torts law. Right? That the laws regarding defective products are such that they incline heavily in favor of rendering the plaintiff whole.

0:27:30 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah.

0:28:23 Thomas: Right. And then the other people down the supply chain can argue with each other over whose fault it was.

0:28:23 Andrew: Right. That's exactly right. I will tell you this aspect is what was demonized in the early 2000s as driving local gun stores out of business. And back when, again, back when Bernie Sanders was defending this vote, that was the argument was, yeah, yeah. I've got nothing against going after Colt, but I do have a problem with our, you sporting goods stores going out of business in Vermont.

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0:31:20 Andrew: Next, the question that I would ask is do how you go about proving a product's liability action? And you really need it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but you really need five things. And of Right. Those five, I'm going to flag two of them are where you might have questions regarding a gun. So the first is that the defendant is a commercial seller of a product or in the chain, that's OK, fine. The second is that product caused you to be injured. The third, and this is probably the one that has the biggest intuitive question mark by it, the product that injured you was defective in some way, we're going to talk about the legal definition of a defect, fourth is that that defect is what caused your injury, and then the fifth that I think probably causes another question mark is that the product was being used in the way that it was intended to be used, right, yeah, and so that last one you're like, okay, what does it mean, used in a way that's intended to, so that the question there is, what What level of resolution?

0:32:14 Andrew: Right. So mechanically, when I use an AR-15 to shoot a human being, that is consistent with how the product was intended to be used. But

0:32:25 Thomas: Is a killing machine. So

0:32:27 Andrew: An Intent-based perspective, the gun manufacturers would argue, "Oh, no, we intended this to be use for self-defense, not for offense." Right, so you would have an argument that goes kind of back and forth on, are you using it the way the manufacturer intended you to do so? And again, my, my argument here, and you, you will see this when we get to the, the full analysis, is not that this is a knockdown case against the gun industry, it's that these are meritorious cases that have tremendous social value, and I'm going to speak to that when we got there, but let I want to convince you that these are cases worth bringing. So let's talk about, is it really a defect, right? That the, yeah, right. Yeah. I can see someone saying like, well, no, it, it seems to be what it's intended to do. How would you call that a defect? When the answer is that, um, the law classifies different kinds of defects, and right. I've been deliberately steering you in the way of defects Defects that are not applicable to the gun industry.

0:32:27 Thomas: Yeah yeah if anything it's like if you tried to shoot a bunch of people and the gun didn't go off, you then you'd sue for a defect. I wasn't able to murder people with your killing machine, I want my money back.

0:33:39 Andrew: So that's what we call a manufacturing defect, They right? Occur during the construction or the production of the item, And a manufacturing right. Effect allows you to compare the product that was sold to the product as designed, right, so only a few, right, a subset of the products that are sold will be defective, right will not match up with the design, um, and a good example of this is, um, the real case involving cough syrup, right, so there's a a lead pipe above the uh warehouse floor, it's got a leak in it, and so a handful, a small subset of, and and stuff flowing through it drips into to every 30th bottle of cough syrup, right, so most of the cough syrup is fine, some of it is contaminated by this defect that occurred during the production of the coffee syrup, right, and our chainsaw example, again, assuming that, you most of Black and Decker chainsaws are perfectly fine, but one out of every 50 throws its chain, you have a great case for a manufacturing defect.

0:33:53 Thomas: Okay

0:34:46 Andrew: That's obviously not the gun argument, but there is a category of defects, recognized, long-standing recognition in the law, called design defects, and the idea is that the product is inherently unreasonably dangerous design. Defects exist before the product is manufactured and apply to everything that's produced, right, and where have we talked about this, we've talked, to put this on a lot of awful movies, uh, with the Ford Pinto case, right.

0:35:02 Thomas: Yeah

0:35:16 Andrew: Every single Ford Pinto has the same problem, right, had the same trouble, I guess there's still a handful out there that have not exploded yet, right, and that was the placement and design of the fuel tank in conjunction with the rear axle and the bumper, right, and that design made the Pinto inherently, inherently more likely to explode in the event of a rear end collision. So that's a defect in the way the product was conceived and designed. Not, right, you, there's a faulty thing here that applies to one out of every 50, but no, all of them are unreasonably dangerous. And I think, I, there are two really plausible arguments here about the inherently unreasonably dangerous nature of the AR-15.

0:35:16 Thomas: It

0:36:04 Andrew: Pick that one as an example? Because of the recent school shootings have involved the AR-15 or its clones, right. So this would, if you were able to get a civil verdict that stopped the production of the AR-15 and held Colt and those that produced knockoffs responsible, I think that would obviously do a lot of good in the world. So are the two defects that I think of? First I think is pretty obvious, right, that is and

0:36:31 Thomas: Goes boom and fires a death projectile to that causes death, death.

0:36:36 Andrew: That it has features that make it even more deadly than the usual right, right, yeah, so you know, take again our Black and Decker chainsaw, and you chainsaws are inherently dangerous, if you had a chainsaw that, had, uh, know, no hand guard on the back so that you every time you leaned into a tree it also cut off your arm, right, it would not do you good, as you know, the Black and Decker here to say, oh well, everybody knows chainsaws are dangerous, right, but yours is super dangerous even for a chainsaw, your hypothetical.

0:36:40 Thomas: Deathy yeah yeah yeah

0:37:08 Andrew: Right I'm not trying to, you defame Black and Decker, um, and the AR-15 has multiple characteristics that make it even more deadly than the usual product that, you know, shoots a high velocity projectile designed to kill people, rate, right, of fire, the ability to hold high capacity magazines, all of that stuff. The second area is that the AR-15 and other semi-automatic assault weapons are capable of being modified, and there seems like it is plausible, and we do not have a single smoking gun document, but put a pin in that, that to believe that

0:37:08 Thomas: I was

0:37:43 Andrew: That the manufacturers are just winking at that illegal modification. Right. And to tell the story from that, I want to talk about the not the Uvalde shooting, but the Buffalo shooting, shooting.

0:37:55 Thomas: You're the grocery store that was in the news cycle for five minutes, yeah.

0:37:55 Andrew: Correct so What happened in that case that has been, again, erased from the headlines because of the school shooting, the suspect, 18, went into a store called Vintage Firearms despite the fact that he had been required to undergo psychological evaluation, evaluation, after making menacing and violent comments to high school classmates, that did not trigger the red flag for New York's instant background check. So he walked out with a used Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic rifle. The Bushmaster XM-15 is a direct copy of the AR-15, so, right? Walks out, used gun, passes the background check because our background checks have been watered down, right, somebody who has been flagged by the social services system as maybe not the kind of person who should have a gun. Then he went home.

0:37:59 Thomas: Yeah

0:38:52 Andrew: Borrowed his father's electric drill, removed the restraining bolt that was required by New York State law that limited the capacity of the XM-15 to a 10-round clip. That modification, literally drilling through the bolt, allowed him to load multiple 30-round magazines, which then, and now again I am using his words from his 180-page manifesto, made it easier to hunt, target, and kill Black people, which is what the suspect went and did. So from a product's liability standpoint, if the manufacturer knows that you can easily disable a safety feature, that seems like an argument that it would be a product defect, right, can we prove it? Yet you know this

0:39:37 Thomas: It's hard yeah, if you, if you drilled a hole in the product, you know, like, I guess that, what amount of effort is too easy for that question, I guess.

0:39:45 Andrew: And that's what's up to a jury to decide, right, that's why you should go forward with these lawsuits

0:39:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Semi-related question. Who's making these high-capacity magazines? Are they like homemade or are they also produced by a company that we should sue?

0:39:50 Andrew: Yeah, uh uh they are also produced by companies that we should sue, yes. I

0:40:01 Thomas: Because those, I mean, just the existence of high-kapacity magazines seems unreasonably dangerous to me.

0:40:07 Andrew: Agree with that, uh, again, I think we need to repeal the PLCAA in order for those lawsuits suits to go forward. So now I, I want to respond to maybe the centrist argument, right, of okay, but let's not drive an industry out of business. Right, I I know you're not gonna, you're not gonna make that argument, right, yeah, but yeah

0:40:24 Thomas: No, let's please drive an industry out of business, Andrew, I'm asking you.

0:40:32 Andrew: And the answer is, probably, not right to use this, I'm going back to the origins of this debate. So there's a 2004 paper, it was written by a University of Texas law professor named Wendy Wagner, "Stubborn Information Problems and the Regulatory Benefits of Gun Litigation." I'll link it in show notes. Here's how that begins, this 2004, four. "By all accounts, the gun litigation has been an utter failure. Plaintiffs claim no significant courtroom victories and appear pleasantly surprised when their cause survives a motion to dismiss. Even more damning, the litigation has provoked a violent backlash. Without salient smoking gun evidence, the hoped for David and Goliath image is transformed into the opposite.

Plaintiff's attorneys, sitting on obscenely large winnings from the tobacco litigation, are portrayed as having an almost insatiable love for high-stakes litigation, look more akin to Goliath than David. The quick bankruptcy of several of the smallest gun companies following the litigation, coupled with a realization that even the biggest manufacturers are relatively small when compared to tobacco defendants, complete that flipped image." So what happened in 2004? She actually predicts the passage of this act. She says the NRA is churning out negative publicity and inflaming its chapters against gun litigation. A tidal wave of state legislation barring the municipal litigation was passed in 32 states and considered in all but four. And then months after writing this article, the PLCAA was passed.

0:42:05 Andrew: So at the time, gun litigation was not a realistic threat to gun manufacturers. Manufacturers, they had no overwhelming victories, and the NRA was able to use the success of plaintiffs' trial attorneys against the tobacco industry as a boogeyman to really rally support for the gun industry in the early 2000s. So, if, all of this is super speculative, why do we care, right? Why should this be on the list? And the answer is, when you drill down into what litigation does, permitting these cases to go forward is how we inform the public debate and move the noodle, right?

0:42:47 Thomas: Yeah, move that noodle. If you don't know what that means, tune in to episode 600.

0:42:50 Andrew: So she calls this stubborn information problems. And I love that. And I want to read this paragraph. It's from 274. "Stubborn information arises when information is privately held and there are no incentives or subsidies to encourage its production or sharing. As a result, the information is closely guarded and deliberately withheld from other participants in the policymaking process. Actors who create risks to health amass specialized private expertise about the ways that their activities or products could cause harm, but sharing this information often leads or threatens to lead to increased liability or regulation." Let's take a pause for that, that's undeniably true, right?

We learned that during the tobacco litigation, that tobacco companies had been researching for decades how to make cigarettes less addictive, they'd been researching for decades all of the health risks, and they sat, sat on, or burned, or funded public research to the contrary to make sure that the public didn't know how dangerous their products were. The same thing is true about the gun industry, and I've got absolute proof in a minute. The gun industry knows how to make their products safer and more able to be used for the uses to which they were intended. But they have not only no incentive to continue to research this and to make that information public, they have every incentive to keep that information private. "But continuing actors are thus rewarded for concealing the potential adverse effects of their activities on public health and are able

0:44:23 Andrew: To maintain an advantage position in the information deficient debate. For example, gun manufacturers understand that investments in research on gun safety may reveal negligent past practices, which could in turn lead to increased, increased liability and regulatory responsibilities, as well as unpopularity in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, gun manufacturers and dealers might be more willing to perpetuate ignorance rather than contribute to greater public knowledge regarding gun safety." All of this seems intuitively true, and this is the virtue of allowing civil litigation to go forward, even when it has a mixed or low record of success. This is why she deliberately phrased the introduction of plaintiffs are ecstatic when they survive a motion to dismiss.

0:45:11 Andrew: That's true, because that means you get discovery. And the more discovery you get, the greater the opportunity that these documents will go from being buried in gun manufacturers right now to being public. We have an example of one such document. So if you're listening to this show in your home, I want you to Google, "I Colt," okay, like iPad, right, lowercase I, and Colt, like the manufacturer. You will find something amazing, that is zero references after 1999. So, Colt, this is the company, company, by the way, that owns and manufactures the AR-15, was saying publicly in 1999 that it was going to spin off its handgun division to a new company called I-Cult, that was going to target mostly law enforcement and not sales to private individuals.

0:46:08 Andrew: And I want you to think about 1999, We right? Had a Democratic president. We had Democratic Congress. We had just passed national gun control legislation banning semi-automatic assault weapons like the AR-15. This is how the market was responding to that political pressure, What right? Was the I-Cult? The I-cult used smart gun fingerprint technology so that only the authorized user of the firearm could fire it. It's not hard to see how this would be a pretty massive social benefit, so

0:46:36 Thomas: No kidding. Why can't that just be what's required on every single weapon?

0:46:41 Andrew: Why did Colt shelve this idea? We know from lawsuits against Colt that have produced this 1999 memorandum from Stephen M. Soa, who was then the CEO and president of Colt, to its investors, Zilka Capital Partners, about a proposed I colt public offering memorandum. And it says, says three things, and buckle in for this. "Colt management has not wanted to tip its hands in terms of how close Colt is to launching its first smart gun product." This is written in 1999. "Colt's official position is that a law enforcement model of the smart gun could be introduced in two to three years," by 2002, "and a consumer model could be produced in to three months," after that, by 2005. "The reasons Colt management has not kept the public informed with its recent exceptional progress, which may result in a quicker time to market, includes the following. Point one, one of the complaints lodged against the industry is that the industry is deliberately delaying the introduction of the smart guy." Well,

0:47:14 Thomas: An What?

0:47:51 Andrew: Way to prove the case. Again, again, this was written in 1999. We do not have smart guns manufactured today. I, Colt, was shelved, and I'm going to talk about why that is in a second. That proves the very point that we're trying to make here, right? Which is, if you immunize gun manufacturers from litigation, we will have zero opportunity to force them to disclose information like this. Points two and three. Two, "Colt has a limited budget to invest in smart gun technology. Virtually the entire industry has publicly stated that they are against the concept." This is their document.

"And believe it to be virtually impossible, one or two companies have the resources to start catching up if it is believed that viable smart gun were about to be introduced." And three, this is my favorite, "Colt is working in Washington to help put 20 to 40 million dollars in the federal budget for research on smart gun technology," uh, read, is lobbying Washington to give away 40 million to Colt, right?

"Depending on how the press reports the current state of the smart gun, it could be perceived by Congress that further research dollars are not needed." It, so, yeah, this could

0:48:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:06 Andrew: Cost us money, so we are going to come against it. So what happened, right? This was 1999, Colt says, "Yeah, we have rolled this out in two to three years." Well, we elected a Republican president, Congress went hard right on guns, we allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, and we passed the PLCAA and got rid of all this litigation. And it's 23 years later, and we have no smart guns. So I, I don't know that repealing the PLCAA is, is going to stop school shootings, right, can't, do that, but could we massively change the direction that our country is headed? Look, like, the state of the law in 1999 was not great. Right. Like the NRA was still a juggernaut. Bill Right. Clinton was a triangulating centrist. Right, and the Democrats had bare majorities in the House and Senate that were propped up by a whole bunch of Southern blue dog Democrats who didn't like to vote for gun control legislation. We're not talking about a sea change of, you know, ushering in a socialist revolution. We're talking about winning two more seats. And Right.

Just going back to 1999 and And putting legitimate threats in the form of private civil lawsuits against gun manufacturers back on the table. Right. And I think if we do that, we would see a sea change. Is it enough? No. But is it a great starting point? I think it would be a great start. Starting point. Democratic senators in this cycle.

0:49:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:33 Andrew: We can do that. There are close races. We're going to keep you updated on And that. Let's change the law to take away this absolute immunity from suit from the manufacturers of an unbelievably, unreasonably dangerous product, and let's see what happens.

0:50:49 Thomas: A Couple of political points. For one, I see a lot of people who subscribe to this like like rotating villain theory of Democrats that like, okay, you get two more. There's actually 10 more who really hate progress, but they allow Manchin to be the bad guy so that they don't have to take the blame. So, and then to which I would respond, okay. So we just quit then. I guess we give up. No, or we just elect 10 more Democrats. Like what is the actual solution to that problem? The solution is elect enough Democrats to where we can make change. It's the only thing we can do. Do. Some of those arguments strike me as a really innovative way to come to the conclusion that we should still just not do anything and give up. I already know that's a possible thing we could do.

0:51:35 Andrew: Yeah.

0:51:35 Thomas: There's plenty of other reasons we can sit and do nothing and give up. I don't need another potential reason why we could sit and do nothing and give up. I'm loaded with those. I could give you hundreds of those. But if we want to actually do something, thing this is the only avenue, I mean, it really is, it's the only and quickest avenue. If we get enough people in the Senate who don't care about the filibuster and want to actually make change, and we keep the majority in the house, we can get change.

0:51:35 Andrew: And Approval ratings are terrible right now because of the widespread perception, and to some extent the reality, that he has not been able to accomplish things. So that argument, that argument is incompatible with saying that the rest of the Democratic Party, particularly the Democratic members of the Senate, do not have an incentive towards creating a condition whereby they could accomplish things, right? Right.

0:52:15 Thomas: He hasn't Yeah.

0:52:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:30 Andrew: Like that's how you run for reelection. Hey, you sent me to Washington and I delivered. I got this thing done. And modest changes in gun control, in gun safety, in sensible regulations enjoy overwhelming popularity. These Right. Are things that pulled in the 70s and 80s. So essentially what you're saying is you concede, right, that politicians have to run on their record, and that this is something that would be a very good record to run on, banning right high-capacity magazines, repealing the PLCAA. So I think you have to conclude that the like, you secret 10 cabal that would rise up if, if, if you were able to.

0:52:31 Thomas: Well,

0:53:17 Andrew: I think you have to conclude that that that is being overly pessimistic here. Right. These folks have every incentive to want to pass something.

0:53:25 Thomas: Yeah, and I'm not saying there's a zero percent chance of that hypothesis being true. Like there's certainly some percentage chance that there would be more Democrats who wouldn't support the amount of change we want, but we don't know it because they're content to let Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema be the villain. I mean, that's possible, but like, what are we going to do about it? What is the thing we can do about elect more Democrats? Give us even a bigger margin. It's let's all be adults and realize this is the thing we have to do. That's it. There's no, we can sit and complain and hope there's some magic way that Biden could just fix everything for us, but that doesn't exist. So let's do what we have to do and organize and get motivated. Another thing I wanted to say is there's lot of talk about how motivating Roe will be. You know, what's interesting is these background checks, some of these gun control measures, they are even more popular than Roe, which is fascinating to me.

0:54:20 Thomas: I don't know if that means they will motivate the same kind of energy, you because I think there could be an energy difference. It's not just like, well, 60% is 60% or whatever, for example. There might be like a highly motivated 60% versus a, oh yeah, that would be a good idea, 60%. So, you know. There could be difference in motivation there, but these are very popular things. More popular than Roe, which already seems like unpopularity the of that decision by the court may come back to haunt Republicans. We'll see.

0:54:48 Andrew: Hope so. All we can do is continue to try and motivate folks to do the one thing that you have at your disposal in the democratic process, right, which is use your vote to try and get the outcome and results that match up with what you want. That's it. That's the power you have, the power of your vote. So I get, feeling disillusioned. I get all of that. But all you can do is is knuckle down and work harder.

0:55:16 Thomas: Well, you have the power of your voice as well. You have the power of not contributing to an environment and an atmosphere that bashes people who don't actually currently have the PowerPoint and given them the power to make change. You have your voice, as well, you know, your social media, you've got your friends, you've got your whoever. All right. Well, thanks for the deep dive. I really wish we could repeal this terrible law. Here's hoping.

0:55:17 Andrew: Yep. Well, That's An Excellent Point. Yep.

0:55:39 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:55:45 Thomas: Time for T4BE. Each week I try to answer a bar exam question using nothing but my rugged good looks. What are non-rugged good looks?

0:55:53 Andrew: Well, that if it were just that Yeah.

0:55:55 Thomas: I guess like neater. I don't think I'm very rugged actually.

0:55:55 Andrew: Right. I You could, you could be exceptionally pretty, I think, and still you Know, like, yeah.

0:56:02 Thomas: Yeah. Using nothing but my not at all rugged good looks. Okay. Let's see if I can answer a part of that question.

0:56:07 Andrew: If It were, if the bar were judged on good looks, like you'd be in the, in the Upper 90s. So, Thomas, A man walked into a convenience store and immediately approached the cashier. He yelled, "Give me all your money or I will shoot you." The man had his hand in his pocket with his finger pointed like a gun and shook it at the cashier. However, there was no gun in his pocket. Feeling scared, the cashier tripped the alarm and when the man heard it, he ran out of the store empty-handed. The The man's friend was waiting for the man outside the store to service the getaway driver. As soon as the man ran out of the store, he quickly got into his friend's car and the friend drove away from the scene in order to avoid being caught. What crime is

0:56:12 Thomas: Oh, how nice.

0:56:26 Thomas: Yeah, that old trick.

0:56:55 Thomas: Boy.

0:56:57 Andrew: The man's friends liable for? All right. A. Robbery. B. Attempted robbery. C. Larceny. Or D. No crime.

0:56:59 Thomas: Oh wow.

0:57:11 Thomas: So I wonder if this is that felony or that conspiracy rule, whatever, the thing where if you're part of a felony conspiracy, what is it? I can't remember the word, something like that, that involves a gun or some level of badness, then everybody's guilty for the thing. However, the guy didn't actually have a gun. So does that complicate it? I thought at first it was going to be about what can the the shopkeeper sue the, fake the, gunman for. And that would be, I think more based on your perception of, of, think it's, if you you make someone fear as though they're going to be shot, even if you don't actually have a gun. I mean, I think that, that tends to be like just as bad as actually having a gun a lot of times, but if the guy's just in the friend's car and he's planning to be the getaway driver and there was no robbery.

0:58:00 Thomas: So he really just was an Uber driver. He just gave his friend a ride. But what's weird is I don't see any conspiracy stuff here, but maybe that doesn't matter. I don't know. I feel like this would be conspiracy to commit a robbery or or something, but I don't really see that. Okay, let's see. A, robbery. Well, nothing was stolen. Let's go ahead and hope that since I know the term attempted robbery exists, when this wasn't successful, let's assume we can eliminate A because there wasn't actually a robbery. So I'll eliminate that. B, attempted robbery. That's strong. I mean, I feel like, forget all the like gun felony part of the thingy. Oh yeah, that's felony murder. Okay. Maybe that doesn't matter. Yeah. That is like if somebody kills somebody in the conspiracy you have agreed to be a part of, then you can also be guilty of that murder.

0:58:06 Andrew: All

0:58:53 Thomas: But maybe that doesn't apply here because nobody's killed. Okay, so I'll forget that maybe. B, attempted robbery looks solid. C, larceny, nobody was larsed. I don't think there was any empty-handed. No, it can't be larceny. I'm going to strong eliminate A and C. I just cannot see those being correct. Or D, no crime. So I think it's between B, attended robbery, or D, no crime? I think the fact that there was nothing stolen, I think this is one of those technicalities. I think it's going to be like, if the guy agreed to be the getaway driver for this plan and the guy had a gun, that's definitely attempted robbery. But since he never really had a gun, does it count since he pretended he had a gun, the cashier thought he had to go. And so like, I don't know. No crime is interesting. No crime at the very least.

0:59:39 Thomas: He's harboring a fugitive at the very least, somebody committed an attempted robbery and you're helping that guy get away. I think it's B, attempted robbery. I think that I'm going with the simple, straightforward answer. I think they had a plan to commit a robbery. They attempted it. It didn't work. Nobody larced. Nobody was robbed. D is my second choice, though. There may be a chance that based on the letter of the law, this guy was just an Uber driver. So it's between B and D. I'm going with B, final answer.

1:00:12 Andrew: Right. And if you'd like to play along with Thomas, you know how to do that. Just share out this episode on social media. Include the hashtag T3BE. Include your guess, your reasons. Therefore, we will pick a winner and shower that winner with never-ending fame and fortune. Fame and fortune not guaranteed.

1:00:26 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

1:00:27 Thomas: And now it's time to thank our new patrons at patreon.com/law. Enjoying all the goodies. Oh, Lawdawful Movies was out. I got that turned around pretty fast. It's a great one. My wife said she loved it. You know, and that's, she's objective, absurd.

1:00:36 Andrew: You sure did.

1:00:44 Thomas: No, not at all.

1:00:44 Andrew: And she notoriously hates the ones that I'm on, so.

1:00:48 Thomas: The lambs that you're on, yeah. All of them. Yeah. Uh, no, it's a great one. You really should listen to it. It's is the, the Lincoln lawyer series, uh, that some buddy thought would be a good idea on Netflix. We watched the first episode and that was enough. Uh. So

1:00:49 Andrew: Yeah.

1:01:02 Andrew: Yes, it was. We had Special guest Matt Donnelly from the Ice Cream Social podcast. He's He's a funny guy, and uh, and he, he does not disappoint. He brings the funny.

1:01:04 Thomas: Yeah. Love that guy. Not at all.

1:01:12 Andrew: And

1:01:13 Thomas: Go become a $2 and up patron to hear that right now. And everybody, of course, enjoys those ad-free episodes, the early episodes and the questions, the the intro quote suggestion that's coming up in another two episodes here. So let's thank our new patrons, Emery Demuth, Tatiana Lange, Gale, Ellen Berman, Jessica Brubaker, Benjamin Treuhaft, Brian Kelly. Your turn, Andrew.

1:01:38 Andrew: Thank you to Guy Manfellow, to Whale Oil Beef Hooked, nice try, to Matt Doherty, Myra, to Colossal Dreadmaw, a powerful creature that will threaten your opponent's life total, um, Allie Pratchler and Brian LaPota. Thank you all so much for supporting the show. That's patreon.com/law. Give us a buck and we will read your name, even if you are a Colossal Dreadmaw.

1:02:08 Thomas: Wow. And That's our show. Thanks so much for listening, everybody, and look forward to a little special segment on episode 600, celebrating that milestone. Gonna be a lot of fun. And then also more on what we can do to try to stop the gun violence epidemic. So, uh, it's a bit, it's bit of an up and down on that one, but it'll be fun. We'll see you then.

1:02:27 Clip: I move for a bad court thingy. You mean a mistrial? Yeah, that's why you're the judge and I'm the law talking guy.

1:03:00 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki, follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Arguments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.