I'm A Bit Stumped By This

I'm A Bit Stumped By This

The Idaho legislature recently passed a bill that, at least in Idaho, would be right up there Mom and apple pie:

Adds to and amends existing law relating to sport shooting activities to provide for a limitation of liability on certain sport shooting activities and to provide exceptions; and to provide an exception to governmental liability relating to certain sport shooting ranges.

Essentially, it protects the operator of a shooting range from being sued except if the operator:

(i) Commits an act or omission that constitutes gross negligence or willful and wanton disregard for the safety of the participant and that act or omission caused the injury; or
(ii) Intentionally injures the participant.

The reason should be obvious: shooting is intrinsically somewhat hazardous. You accept certain risks if you are firing a deadly weapon, or going somewhere that deadly weapons are being fired. (Sort of like skydiving.) The net effect is that if the operator of a shooting range is making a reasonable effort to keep it safe, you can't sue him. It also seems to protect the operator if he has taken reasonable efforts, and another customer does something stupid, irrational, or criminal, that causes injury to another customer.

I believe that if the operator saw customer X do something obviously dangerous (like handling a gun on the firing line while customers were downrange), and didn't tell customer X to knock it off, and this lead to customer Y being injured, this would qualify as "gross negligence" or "willlful and wanton disregard."

Such a bill prevents ambulance chasing antigun lawyers from using a a trivial error by an operator, or the actions of another customer, from being used to bankrupt a shooting range. You can see why those who look out for ambulance chasers and antigun activists would oppose such a bill.

Well, the bill passed the legislature, but State Senator Tim Corder (who represents me up there), was one of only five state senators to vote against it! The other four who voted against it? All Democrats? All representing Boise. (The ambulance chaser, antigun part of Idaho.)

I know that this vote won't go down well with the voters of Corder's district. But my experience in the last election when I ran against Corder in the Republican primary was that a lot of Republicans I talked to disagreed with Corder's votes and bill sponsorships, often at the level of complete bewilderment. It wasn't that there were angry, but they found how he voted and the bills he sponsored so bizarre that they seemed to have trouble holding Corder responsible for his actions. Yet they still planned to vote for him, because...well, they went to church with him (and a church that can't possibly be happy with that sexual orientation bill he sponsored), and he was from Elmore County. (Our district includes Elmore and Boise Counties, and Elmore is the majority of the votes.)

I'm really hoping that someone from Elmore County runs against Corder in the Republican primary next time around. As near as I can tell, that's the only way to unseat someone who votes more like a Democrat than a Republican.