So common sense is lost in this country. You pull the trigger and it's now the gun makers fault. Way to go all. Just remember, that a gun cannot pull it's own trigger, it's the person who holds it. A good person with a gun would not shoot up a school. Remington or any other gun company did not make him pull the trigger. You could even 3D print your own gun. Going after gun company's doesn't stop the bad guys. This judge was very wrong in judgement and at the end of the day they just care about the money. The 2nd amendment: The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." This is for our protection. Stop allowing yourself to be blinded.
While we're at it, how about the new House of Reps just repeal the 2005 law providing the shield?
2
I remember the early 1960s when you could buy (Military Semi-Automatic Rifles) like M1 Carbine, M1 Garand, other rifles, pistols, revolvers and ammunition thru the US mail. There were far fewer regulation than there are today and yet there were far fewer mass shootings than there are today! The only mass shooting I recall occurred on Aug. 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman climbed a 27-story tower on the University of Texas campus and started picking people off.
The term "Assault Weapon" is sometimes conflated with the term "Assault Rifle". People should differentiate between "Assault Rifles," which are capable of fully automatic firing, and fire arms which are Semi-Automatic (rifles and handguns). Civilian ownership of machine guns (and assault rifles) has been tightly regulated since 1934 under the National Firearms Act and since 1986 under the Firearm Owners Protection Act.
The .223 is not an effective military round. You need a 2 or 3 round burst on target to put down a fighter. The United States Military will soon replace weapons (M16 and M4) that use the .223 because of poor performance in Afghanistan.
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/replacing-the-m16-five-lethal-candidates/
New rifle, bigger bullets: Inside the Army's plan to ditch the M4 and 5.56
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/05/07/new-rifle-bigger-bullets-inside-the-army-s-plan-to-ditch-the-m4-and-5-56/
2
Not sure it applies but any product can be deemed unreasonably dangerous under the right facts. Mass marketing battlefield weapons to consumers strikes me as unwise, unethical and hopefully illegal. If anyone wants graphic evidence of the idea just check out U Tube for a 12-13 year-old girl taken to a shooting range byu her parents for training in using the weapon losing control of it and killing the instructor.
To those who say the 2nd amendment is "sacred" - do you think it is more sacred than the life of a child? Do you think it is more sacred than the right of a child to feel safe in school? If you actually think the answer to these questions is yes, would you be able to look a parent survivor in the eye and say, "My 2nd Amendment rights are more sacred than your child's life?" If you are able to say that while looking in the eyes of someone who has lost their child, you are depraved. If you would not be able to look a surviving parent in the eye while saying this nonsense, maybe you should rethink your position. Nothing is more sacred than the life of a child. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of all children in this country. When you say that the 2nd Amendment is "sacred" what you are actually saying is that the right of gun manufacturers to make money is sacred. You elevate greed over the most basic thing that all reasonable people should value and protect - the life of an innocent child. "Sacred" means "connected with God or dedicated to a religious purpose." I suspect that God would not categorize mass killings of kindergarteners as connected to him.
8
Those who allow assault weapons to be sold to civilians should
be just as liable for prosecution as those who use these weapons to intentionally to murder defenseless US citizens.
2
Remington has profited off the infamy of mass shootings committed by their rifle. They have enriched themselves on the terrible suffering of many families. Long ago, they should have pulled their product from the civilian market. Their continued indifference to extreme trauma their product causes and their willingness to profit from its infamy should open them to litigation.
3
I am a hunter. I own rifles and shotguns. I have a concealed carry permit and own a handgun. And I believe there is no valid reason for anyone to own military grade firearms. The notion that they are needed to defend against a tyrannical government is nonsense. The government has tanks, fighter planes, Predator drones with hellfire missiles, tactical nuclear weapons, etc. -- good luck fighting against that with your assault rifle. The NRA has morphed into an extremist organization and should have its nonprofit status revoked. Bravo to the Sandy Hook and Parkland families for having the courage and resolve to stand up to the NRA.
6
American Corporate Policy In the Early 21st Century.
Paid off by big corporations American Government neglected the foundation of its civilization, the nuclear family, ethics, morality, honor & respect for the law and passed tax laws ensuring profits would rise to the few at the top. Its corporations, became obsessively predatory.
Chemical companies manufactured killing, poisonous, toxins like DDT. When caught, they exported them all over the globe. Monsanto, tried to patent all food as Genetically Modified Organisms in order to control the planets food supply. Coal, Oil & Gas Corporations were allowed to ignore the environment. Pharmaceutical Corporations sold opiates for billions in profit, addicting, destroying American Citizens, families, loved ones.
Weapons corporations lobbied for wars killing millions, making hundreds of billions in profit. High Tech Corporations invaded the lives, the inner thoughts, all aspects of citizenry thinking & sold this data for profit. Private Heath Care Corporations profited in the hundreds of billions on illness that was ensured by poor dietary choices and addictive foods, foisted on the public by Food Production Corporations.
American Capitalism entered a frenzied, manic, predatory phase ensuring its own eventual self-destruction. Government oversight was paid off with dark money and campaign contributions to abide in the destruction for profit.
Xiaojun, Shaoda
Beijing University School of Economics
March 3rd 2067
For those of you who think that the 2nd amendment is sacred:
Every other industrialized democracy has fewer civilian guns than the US *and* has in place common-sense gun laws -- and not one of those nations has launched an attack against its citizenry. Plus, do you really think that you and your weapons -- even assault weapons -- would be any match for a government-backed attack with tanks and more-aggressive weaponry?
There is no justification for anyone other than a hunter to have any kind of weapon, and hunters don't need the kinds of weapons that domestic terrorists routinely use, and hunters don't need more than one weapon.
One look at the types of Americans who are besotted with guns, and rabid about the need to keep lots of them in everyone's hands, is enough to provide a very disturbing snapshot of those psyches. Instead of buying guns, see a therapist: Revolve your anger issues, your problems with authority, and the stumbling blocks to intimacy and self-fulfillment, all of which make you take refuge in the false notion that you can manage your life *only* if you have the option to overpower, or kill, everyone you disagree with or anyone who thwarts you in some way.
Yes, life is hard and unfair -- but being enthralled by deadly weapons isn't the answer.
4
There are business enterprises which knowingly sell products that harm users and non-users. Some are considered illegal like unlawful trafficking in drugs, or exploiting vulnerable people to use them as sex objects or unpaid labor, and trafficking in weapons of war without state licensing. Some legally, like tobacco products. Then their are the products that can easily be used to do harm.
When people are users of dangerous products they expect others who use them to do so safely or expect that they not be allowed to use them. When it’s a product that they have no personal use for, they see no justification for anyone to use them if they have been used to do harm. So it is with guns.
Public possession of guns in wide open spaces is rarely a danger but in crowded places the rest is very high. The public carry laws are a real danger to all in highly populated areas and should not be permitted.
While nearly all who use and use guns use them carefully and pose no risk to anyone, some people are very dangerous. Those people need to be identified and denied access to any firearms.
The AR-15 is popular because of it’s advanced design, but it’s lethality is only slightly different from the lethality of all guns. At this point it has become a symbol of unregulated firearms used illegally but any cold evaluation would show that it’s no more deadly in practice than all other models of firearms.
Have those who think that banning guns is a viable strategy thought it through?
The parents who are pursuing this are dealing with what only those who have suffered the same as they can understand. I have no opinion about that that matters. May they find peace and purpose as they desire.
Public policy needs to be decided according to the needs of the public not one portion of the public who feel that they possess truth that demands implementation contrary to the considered wishes of everyone else.
When a business deliberately provides weapon to people who they expect will do harm to innocent people or just use them with reckless disregard for the welfare of others, the people responsible should take responsibility for all the harm done. That is only fair.
As a society, we have an obligation to assure that even with the Second Amendment, no person at seriously risk of doing harm to anyone except in self defense or in service of a well regulated militia should have any access to firearms. To accomplish this with the right to keep and to bear arms, all firearms should be registered and all owners and users should be licensed. Courts should be empowered to remove firearms from anyone that has been determined to pose any significant risk.
After two centuries of unusually prosperous and peaceful life and respect for individual liberties, there is no reason to fear either the federal government becoming a dictatorship nor nearly all owners of guns to present a clear and present danger to the rest of the population. It’s time to be reasonable.
I retired as a New Haven detective after 27 years following Army Military Police duty. I wish to thank the four CT Supreme Court Justices (4-3 vote) who's courage and compassion allowed the Newtown families to seek justice for those lost and those who never should be forced to look down the barrel of an AR-15.
3
What is this chorus about AR-15 as the root of gun violence all about? If you were a police officer, you saw a pitifully few gun deaths by this gun but many more by handguns, shotguns, and other kinds of rifles.
No child should see any gun aimed at them.
How could Congress do this to us?
How is taking away ALL responsibility for gun makers in any way contributing to "a well regulated militia"?
How is this possible? How is this constitutional?
7
The Congress represents the legitimate will of the people but that is conditional upon who actually votes. If people don’t vote or ignore how their representatives are representing them, then poor legislation is more likely to become law.
I am a fan of increased restrictions on assault rifles, but the decision to allow this case to proceed is wrong and sets a terrible precedent. The fact remains that the sale of these weapons is perfectly legal, and federal law has explictly banned these types of lawsuits so that firearms companies are not held liable for these crimes. Just because these laws may be the result of poor judgment, it is not up to the courts to decide which laws are good and which are bad. The only legitimate way forward is to change the laws. The negative consequences of this type of judicial activism, if left unchecked, will far outweigh any short-term victories on issues such as these.
While there may indeed be times when judicial activism is warranted, this is not one of those times. There are very valid arguments as to why these gun companies should not be liable for the crimes committed by mad men. Let’s respect the rule of law, and by doing so we will ensure that the law is upheld when we change it for the better.
3
@Tyler
The sale of cigarettes is also perfectly legal, but it is illegal for tobacco companies to target their marketing to minors. Just because it's legal to sell something, that doesn't absolve a company from marketing it illegally.
The rule of law works both ways.
7
@Citizen
That’s true, but it is illegal for them to market to minors because it is illegal for minors to buy cigarettes. It is not illegal for men who have low self-esteem to buy guns. The ads in question, as described in the article, seemed to be tailored to this audience.
Also, some ads had a combat theme to them. But remember, these guns are indeed combat weapons, so why should gun makers be prevented from marketing them as such? The issue is that we have legalized combat weapons. We need to change those laws.
4
Somehow, I just know you’re furious about the protections for vaccine makers.
Not a good day for this nonsense, really.
Pt 1/3
1st & 4most my condolences & prayers always go out to families who lost someone in any kind of shooting, including suicides. Nothing can remove the pain of losing a loved 1, especially a parent losing their children.
That sed, I too am an old Jarhead (that's a Marine Veteran for the the vernacularly challenged) w a concealed weapon permit as well.
However, sorry folks but it comes down to responsibility... as in a person being responsible for their own actions.
Let's see if I can say enuff in the ltd space, tho u can't chg minds of folks blinded by fear & hate, nor can they see the truth.
Since hammers kill more people than rifles we shd be going after Stanley & other tool mfrs.
The term assault rifle put on AR-15's & similar is a misnomer. U won't see military making assaults w them. They use automatics. Next, any gun or rifle is incapable of killing or assaulting anyone on it's own. Lay urs on the table. Command it to assault... even just fire. It won't. It can't...not until it's in the hands of a user. & that dear folks is what separates the men fr the boys. I learned rifle safety at the YMCA when I grew up in the early 60's. We had to demonstrate responsibility b4 we cd even touch a BB/pellet rifle. I cd go on, quote facts but the left & facts mix like H2O & oil.
Want a different perspective fr a Parkland parent?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/25/parkland_shooting_victim_father_it_is_not_about_gun_control_it_is_about_safety_in_schools.html
2
“Hammers kill more people than rifles,l may be the dumbest thing I’ve read all day. Congrats, I guess.
1
Just in time for the 1 year anniversary of March for Our Lives! We need Wikileaks to get the private emails the NRA/ gun lobby/manufacturers hold onto so dearly.
Also, please read "Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Put it on the curriculum in every high school and college.
2
Today again we suffer because of terrorists owning these weapons of mass destruction. Again young men chose this weapon to kill worshipers. Even after Remmington; et al stop merchandizing to young impressionables, YouTube will do their advertising for them. Until these weapons are ONLY allowed in the Military and confiscated from all others...there will be no end. So terribly tragic.
4
As a lawyer, I'd find it very hard sitting on that jury to accept the plaintiffs' argument as a basis for liability.
As a parent, I'd find it very hard sitting on that jury to think like a lawyer.
Indeed, it is hard to imagine how you could possibly select a jury of 12 people who can think dispassionately about the facts of the case and the law as explained to them, without first determining they all 12 are genuine sociopaths.
Either way, a few things are clear in all this. A) It is dubious to claim that the marketing of guns as Male Enhancement toward troubled young men caused Ms. Lanza to purchase the weapon with which her son murdered her and others. B) the reason plaintiffs have to resort to such a far fetched legal theory is because the normal avenues for tort liability for manufacturers of inherently dangerous products have been precluded by extremely irresponsible legislation. C) the reason for the extremely irresponsible legislation is idolatry of the 2nd Amendment, a fairly obsolete insurance policy written for a barely-coherent confederation of pre-industrial states to mollify some of them, and more recently, extremely anachronistic and illogical interpretation of the rights conferred by that amendment by gun nuts and their favorite judges.
The only solution is to amend the constitution. Unfortunately, there is no quantity of blood, not even in all the children of this country, that would cover the cost of marketing such an amendment to this disturbed USA.
6
@Alex Actually, the reason for the PLCAA is because some politicians went on record as saying they were for creating legislation through litigation, attacking gun manufacturers, ownership and the 2nd Amendment through the courts, instead of trying to get an amendment passed.
1
A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. Who knows where it could lead?
2
This shares a similarity with the opioid crisis and the selling of OxyContin. In both cases marketing was designed to sell a product which wasn't needed but which made the manufacturers rich. In both cases bankruptcy was used or considered to avoid responsibility.
1
I would love to think this is a tipping/ turning point in the endless/ mindless gun violence in the U.S.; but I doubt it. I would love to have Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Co. alive today; and hear what they would say about their dear Second Amendment. It is possible the N.R.A. would NOT want to hear it! But of course the musket generation could never imagine some butcher murdering 20 little kids in a school thanks to his "right to bear arms." Canadians can only shake their head at such mass insanity; as does most of the civilized world. That it happens here, New Zealand, and many other countries only points out how rare it is. The U.S. stands alone in making it as American as apple pie. GOD bless the families of these fallen little angels. My hopes and prayers go with them. But stacked up against the arsenal of the N.R.A.; and the neanderthal Second Amendment; they face overwhelming odds. At least the Connecticut Supreme Court has cast a tiny ray of light in doing the right thing!
7
What was the NRA's response to the Sandy Hook massacre? They lowered the fee for lifetime membership from $1000 to $300. That was their response to the butchery of 20 first graders.
87
@Kathleen Kourian Well, yes. Because they knew people such as yourself would attempt to push stricter gun laws and further restrict legal gun owners’ federally guaranteed human rights as a result of the horrific actions of someone who has nothing to do with them. So they naturally assumed more legal gun owners would see the need of NRA advocacy than before. Why not lower the price to make joining easier? Nothing evil about it, as you are implying.
2
As a hunter, the game is usually harvested with one shot with a bolt action rifle with a telescopic sight and about a four round capacity. The game if missed is usually long gone if missed. Military rifles are accurate but designed to kill or maim people. The NRA is wrong to defend all arms which in the long run may harm the hunters and legitimate owners. In the South wild hogs ( boar) are causing havoc and a Bushmaster is not the way to hunt.
6
@James,
Show me where hunting is addressed in the 2nd amendment.
3
Show me where in the 2nd Amendment it says that anyone can own an AK 47.
1
The court clearly acted upon its personal bias against guns versus the facts of the law. So now we open up all manufactures of anything from alcohol to knives or any other product that can be criminally misused to these types of suits. After all why would we blame the perpetrator of the crime for his or her actions. It is the products fault and how you advertised it to me. If you hadn't inspired me to drink your product I wouldn't have gotten drunk and run over all of the school kids at the bus stop. My actions are clearly your fault and you should pay dearly!
Now in this particular case the court is saying Adam Lanza, clearly a mentally disturb individual through no fault of his own was solely motivated by Remington's advertising to murder his mother and steel her legally purchased rifle and use it to massacre school children. Some how I just can buy into this nonsense or socialism or the green new deal etc. It is a brave new world!
4
Criminals will always have weapons legally or illegally.
3
I suspect that this will be appealed to the Federal courts, where it should be overturned on the long established principle that state laws cannot trump federal ones.
Overall, however, this idea falls flat on so many ways even without the federal law. First, the gun was not sold to a "troubled young man" but to an old lady from whom it was stolen; so the marketing was a failure if the troubled young man was the target audience.
Second, on a larger scale, if a Corvette is used as the getaway car in a robbery, is Chevrolet to be sued because they marketed it as a fast, nimble vehicle? Does Boeing have liability for the 9/11 attacks, as their airplanes were stolen and used in them?
Manufacturers can ands should be liable for products that cause harm due to manufacturing defects or faulty design. The fact that a product is stolen and used in a crime, no matter how horrific, does not and should not pass liability on the the manufacturer.
2
After suing the gun companies, someone should then sue the GOP members who refused to support an assault rifle ban. Not after Sandy Hook, not after the Colorado theatre shooting, the Charleston church shooting, the Florida nightclub shooting,the high school shootings in Florida and Texas, and not after the Las Vegas killings, plus the many others.
Government could have kept people safe, and due to the NRA supporting members, failed.
5
No sane person should want to own a semi-automatic weapon, unless in uniform. I own weapons and will vigorously defend the right of others to do so, subject to an adequate background check. The 2nd Amendment is not a carte blanche permission to bear every single type of weapon; weapons that the drafters of that amendment had available were muzzle-loading muskets and cannons. I'd be okay with those. Interpretations since then have gone berserk.
7
@James Osborne Plenty of sane people want semi-auto firearms. Also, there were multi shot firearms around during the time of the drafting of the US Constitution. The Puckle gun, the Girandoni Air Rifle, and the Belton flintlock were just some of them, and they were capable of firing faster than the traditional muzzle loaders that you'd "be okay with".
2
@Steve - Okay, no sane person 'needs' to own a semi-automatic weapon.
1
This is good news. There is no reason for ownership of military assault weapons to be legal,and this lawsuit may bring a ban of them closer to the bipartisan support it needs to become law.
4
@Una
That's not going to happen. By the way they are not military assault weapons no matter what you've been told.
1
A company that is publicly traded on Wall Street or any other stock exchange shouldn't have internal communications that they fiercely fight to keep private. Period, that is all. Individual investors, pension funds, etc. have the right to due diligence in deciding whether the share price is justified, whether to buy or sell. Some exclusions like things related to patents and how the company plans to maintain a competitive edge over rivals need to be kept under wraps for a certain time frame, but not internal communications related to marketing and PR. We went through that with the tobacco companies, Big Energy denying climate change, Big Chemical and Big Pharma denying that their products pose a harm to public safety and/or haven't been properly vetted . . .
enough is enough already.
Or as Bob Dylan sang, "too many people have died . . ."
Watch how the politicians from our 2 major political parties vote on these issues, then decide which one really stands for family values, patriotism, the undistorted teachings of Jesus Christ (I'm a Jewish atheist- disclaimer), and more. Watch closely, your lives may depend on it.
(Jesus wept . . .)
2
in general state law is to trump federal law but they can't conflict either....not a fan of the idea of this suit on the plaintiffs side but it's good they get their chance to bring a tort claim. tort law is very important
The lawsuit mounted a direct challenge to the immunity that Congress granted gun companies to shield them from litigation when their weapons are used in a crime.
The activist justices in CT appear to ignore federal regulations in their desire to eliminate guns such as the AK-15. I don't believe the AK-15 should be available to the public. Ever.
However, it is blatantly false and partisan to say it's the 'marketing' and therefore 'unfair trade practices' to let this go to trial. All know the sympathies of juries often result in finding the 'rich, evil corporations' guilt of most anything.
This is an outrage to anyone that believes in the rule of law and the justice's responsibility to follow the law. Remington, and other gun manufacturers, is not responsible for a nut job accessing a gun(s) and shooting people. While Sandy Hook nightmare was beyond belief, we cannot as a civilized people seek revenge against those not responsible.
PS Has anyone ever seen an ad on TV pushing gun ownership or violence to kids? Or anyone? If it exists, it is certainly not mainstream. These justices should lose their seats.
4
The suit gets to the heart of the matter: bogus marketing and tough guy hype. This stuff isn't limited to the gun industry either. Truck commercials and far too many Hollywood tales do the same thing in spades. People are told that is normal to want the biggest and baddest whatever, as if it'll somehow make their marketing targets feel less secure about themselves.
Meanwhile mental illness is on the rise and funding for care is on the decline. It is therefore easy to see violence as normal since it is legitimized no matter what TV channel we turn to. We have too many sick cowboys and girls today to ignore the overall marketing problem any longer.
Indeed, one of the reasons I own firearms today is the threat posed by those who support the NRA and gun manufacturers with blind allegiance based on fear and invented demons. But I certainly don't need an AR style rifle to defend myself if needed. People who long for such a weapon should join the service and kill a few dozen people to see how it feels in the real world.
That it was not Adam Lanza but his mother who bought the AR-15, and who thus was reissued--or issued--a "man card," seems like a problem in bringing this particular case.
4
The gun was bought by the shooter’s mother who failed to secure it. The store from which she bought the gun sold it legally to a person not attracted to mow down lots of students influenced by adds. I’m pretty sure the truck manufacturer in France is not held accountable for the terrorist act on the French Riviera. Our tort system is out of control. Is Gerber cutlery at fault if someone stabs somebody with a carving knife? How about Macy’s where it was sold? There is some truth that private ownership of military arms may not be a good policy. That needs a law change. Stretching the tort system is not the right path.
this is a matter of proximity in tort law and from what I know of tort law it's pretty far fetched. if anything the proximal cause could have easily extended to Mrs Lanza and her failure to properly secure such weapons as a reasonably prudent person.
1
I'm a former Marine and a gun owner who supports the 2nd Amendment. I do not, however, support civilian ownership of military weapons, automatic weapons, or semi-automatic weapons with large capacity magazines. No reasonable person needs to own a magazine that holds more than ten rounds. If you can't hit your target with that, you shouldn't own a firearm. And, if you want to a large capacity weapon, join the Marines. I did.
221
@Potlemac
Former 0811 and totally disagree. How long does it take to swap out a 10 round magazine? How many regular, non-military rifles use cartridges that are the same caliber or larger than the AR-15? Almost every sporting rifle bigger than a .22 and you know it. So ban the 'scary looking guns' if you want but do not try to tell me, especially if you are a former Marine, that a person intent on doing harm cannot be just as effective with 15 ten round magazines as they can be with 5 30 round magazines. You know there is absolutely no difference if the person wielding the weapon wants to commit mass carnage. Even a shotgun, in a closed in space, can be very deadly if used with intent.
11
@GregP At least people would have a chance while the shooter is reloading. There is no chance at all with large capacity magazines. Most serious hunters use a bolt action rifles with calibers larger than a .223; and most take their game with one shot. Don't you think the victims of Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas would rather he had ten round magazines rather than 100 round magazines? It sounded like he was firing a belt fed weapon to my old ears. Take the firepower out of civilian hands and leave it to the military.
42
@Potlemac
Well said sir. Thank-You for your service.
21
Best news all year...this is not an ordinary gun, this is a highly specialized military weapon, whose sole purpose is mass killing. This weapon is not intended for, nor the best choice for, hunting or personal/home defense. What possible reason could there be for marketing & selling this weapon to anyone, especially a young impressionable person. The NRA owns too many souls, and keeps adding to the list of those dead because of their fanaticism, all in the name of fear and greed.
60
@Shelly Hutchinson It's actually the rifle of choice for hunting wild boars that ruin farmland. It's also the best for home defense.
1
@J
It is not the best for home defense, if you don't want to spray your home with high velocity bullets. Get a shotgun; that scares most people. Or, get a Glock if you really think you need some high powered defense. I grew up on a ranch; my father had a shotgun. I think wild boars are region specific; we didn't have any in the Central Valley where I grew up. We had Bison, but no one shot them. In fact, farmers weren't in favor of high powered weapons around their cattle, horses and dairy herds.
3
@J
I can't comment on the wild boar thing, but I would suggest a short shotgun, trench gun or sum such is a better selection for home defense...then again I'm not sure about the home defense thing either...where are you living that you are in the mind set of needing to have a fire arm within grabbing distance for home defense.
1
I don't know federal or state law, but it's about time the gun lobby and its minions in Congress got a taste of their own medicine in circumventing responsibility for the volume and quality of gun violence in the US...and now NZ.
1
I suppose it's a waste of time, but most of the people posting here, not being lawyers, don't understand the purpose of tort law. Tort law, incidentally , is not the product of 21st century bleeding heart snowflake liberals, but goes back thousands of years. The idea is to compensate the victim of harm. The compensation is the goal, in order to prevent personal vendettas. The law goes out of the way to find someone with money who is in some way liable, so that the victim gets compensation. The fact that another person might be more at fault is not relevant as such. "Ambulance chasers" are not despicable, but are doing the job that society assigns to lawyers. Without tort law, if we are looking for justice there is nothing left except for the aggrieved parents to bomb the gun factory.
What next, lawsuits against car manufactures based on their advertising of horsepower ratings? How about book publishers whose books describe things that are copy catted by some deranged murderer?
10
@John Yes. Absolutely. Lawsuits against car manufacturers IF they advertise that their cars are the best vehicles for mowing down pedestrians. THAT is what the manufacturers of the AR15 have essentially done if you look at their ads. Promoted this weapon as the best way for civilians to mow down as many people as possible in the quickest, most effective way.
21
@John
How about Facebook being sued for cyber-bullying that ends in someone's suicide? Or someone getting sued for yelling "fire" in a movie theater? Sometimes words matter.
10
@John Military grade guns are designed for the battlefield. They are literally created and designed to kill people. Cars are for transporting people. Books are for communicating information. Anything can be "weaponized", and misused but military guns are simply weapons. Your argument is without merit.
Military and automatic weapons are not needed for hunting, sport or self-defense.
18
I'm an AR owner and I'm in favor of tighter regulations like extended waiting periods, deep background checks, no bump stocks and mandatory training in a classroom, range and field.
That being said, despite their macho look, these guns are no different than a dozen other hunting rifles that have traditional wood stocks but accept magazines with multiple rounds. They are are also no easier to aim and shoot than any other hunting rifle.
Despite the misnomer that AR stands for assault rifle, AR stands for Armalite, the company that invented these for civilian use. The military application came later. This style is commonly called a modern sporting rifle and it is used by millions for hunting and target applications.
They can be extremely accurate up to 200 yards with a high powered scope and stabilization but the average shooter shooting hand held would have a hard time hitting a target more than 20 ft. away. The .223 and 5.56 rounds they shoot are less deadly than hunting rounds like .270 or .30.6. A 9mm pistol with hollow point bullets would do more damage.
AR-15s are not automatic weapons (or machine guns), those are illegal. You have to reset and pull the trigger each time to fire a round. Having multiple rounds at the ready without having to manually insert a cartridge is a great advantage when hunting and you need to get off another shot quickly, and is a convenience when target shooing.
AR-15s are used by millions of people recreationally (and peacefully).
1
Their legal argument is genius !! This is exactly how U.S. consumers beat down the tobacco companies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_politics#History
“The third wave of tobacco litigation was much more successful for plaintiffs, with plaintiffs winning 41% of cases between 1995 and 2005. It also saw a greater number and variety of lawsuits overall. State attorney generals charged the tobacco industry of using misleading marketing, targeting children, and concealing the health effects of smoking. These cases resulted in settlements across all fifty states in the United States.”
1
I'm a Democrat who feels we need more gun regulation in this country. I, personally, don't like guns. That said . . .
I do not believe gun manufactures should be held liable for the deaths of these kids.
Do we hold Ford liable if someone causes an accident while driving in one of their cars?
Is Budweiser liable for what someone does who drinks too much of their product?
The responsible parties are 1) the person who pulled the trigger, 2) The parents of that person if they are a minor, and 3) the legislators in this country who have refused to tighten regulations. (And by extension, all those idiots who claim thorough background checks, waiting periods, etc. really mean we're coming for their guns.)
16
But neither is Budweiser nor Ford responsible for killing children.
6
@SuLee should tobacco companies be held liable?
6
@SuLee Military guns are designed to kill people. therefore the manufacturers and marketers of these guns should be held partially responsible for the circulation and misuse of these weapons of mass destruction in our society. A beer is a drink and a car is a means of transportation. Guns are in a different category as they pose a great risk to our society (look at our gun death rates!). Explosives and lethal drugs are closely monitored and regulated. Military and automatic weapons -- which pose similar threats to the safety of citizens - should be similarly monitored.
5
Unbelievable. Wonder why people are leaving CT in droves?
The tragedy is bad enough, but looking for a scapegoat outside the actual mentally ill perpetrator is far reaching and wrong.
What if a person instead of using a firearm decides to use another method (such as a car) to carry out their insidious and deadly act, which has happened. Why haven't the car companies, whose vehicles were used, been sued?
1
@Bill Woodson
a car would not have killed that many people! The reason people are leaving CT is taxes not the fact people take gun makers to court.
1
Excellent. Sue them into bankruptcy. The NRA and the Republican Party too. They should already be in jail as accessories to murder.
3
Let’s be clear: the people who sell these guns and commit these crimes and scream about any legislation that’s stop rhem are almost always white men, and almost always way over on the Right of politics, when their politics can be figured out at all. And when they can’t, they’re insane people with a deep taste for the kinds of images that the clowns who make Bushmasters and the rest market incessantly. Lunatics who could have been stopped and treated, if it weren’t for the rich white pols who attack mental health services and any attempt to keep these lunatics from getting their claws on massive firepower.
And they just today killed many more, among peaceful folks at their prayers in Christchurch. Looks like yet more white racists.
No doubt, they’ll respond by sneering at New Zealand, and any place that has rational gun laws. And they’ll demand more guns. Next week, they’ll be screaming at moozlims again.
So what you want to ask is simple: which side are you on? You want to live in a society, or in hell?
2
Well... it's extraordinarily unfortunate that cowards in our country are subverting 2A. But.... lots of "Americans" hid in their houses when the British were coming. And even let them sleep in their barns. I have nothing but utter contempt for the ignorant left.
1
I nominate the Sandy Hook families as recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.
3
Those kids and teachers were killed by a man who killed his mother first. A mother who knew that he was mentally disturbed. He used a gun that was legally obtained. He and his mother went to the gun range. But for her death she seems to carry more of a duty to have stopped this mass shooting from happening than the arms maker.
Arms manufacture is a legal business. Unless it can be shown that there was a duty to these gun victims that involved some negligence or misleading representations of their product. Prevailing in any civil lawsuit is uncertai. Even with a lesser burden of proof aka preponderance of evidence than required in a criminal prosecution.
In a nation with a 2nd Amendment that the Supreme Court of the United States has claimed confers an individual right to bear arms relying on lawsuits against gun makers is unlikely to make any meaningful difference to death by gunshots.
Mass shootings while increasing in frequency make up a minor number of gun shot deaths in America. Of the 40,000+ Americans who die from gunshot about 2/3rds are suicides. With white men making up 80% of the suicides and they tend to use handguns. Homicides typically involve family, friends, neighbors and thugs.
1
I guess money makes it all better, even for these parents..
Sad.
@There
do not even try to make these people feel guilty. Shame on you.
3
America is a violent gun ridden country, but maybe the public tide will turn against making these combat weapons readily available for civilians. If this gun availability situation persists the violence will only get worse and the NRA will only advise children to begin to carry weapons as well as churchgoers to begin to carry weapons. They will say it is perfectly logical and the only way to protect themselves. All I can say is that America has gone mad and hope that sanity is still lurking in the general population and votes count.
1
Great News. I was at Sandy Hook before and after the shooting. Going west Exit 10 off Rt 84 take left of ramp onto Church Hill Road.
Gun manufacturers should be sued for the deaths of innocent women, men, and children. No assault weapons should be sold to individual citizens. It's just insanity!
1
The ONLY purpose for which these weapons were designed is killing people. They do not belong in civilian hands, period.
2
This is a strange decision from the judge who appears to be progressive. Gun manufacturers are not the source of violence in our society. This action does not address the source of violence and, obviously, will do nothing to reduce or eliminate it. If we want to get rid of violence, we should understand it and deal with it at its source. This decision is merely a sham that will do nothing if not make things worse.
3
@Gennady
Thank you....finally the voice of reason.
[[In the lawsuit, the families seized upon the marketing for the AR-15-style Bushmaster used in the 2012 attack, which invoked the violence of combat and used slogans like “Consider your man card reissued.”
Lawyers for the families argued that those messages reflected a deliberate effort to appeal to troubled young men like Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who charged into the elementary school and killed 26 people, including 20 first graders, in a spray of gunfire.]]
But...the mother bought the weapon. So how can they claim the advertising "reflected a deliberate effort to appeal to troubled young men like Adam Lanza"? Where does someone even see an ad for a Bushmaster rifle? And how can they prove Lanza ever saw an ad for the gun?
I'm skeptical of the lawsuit's premise.
2
Wake up gun supporters! The 2nd Amendment was written in order to protect the states from the monarchist desires of some leaders. H'm Trump does want to become King Donald the 1st of the Americas today, but that is a different problem. Anyway, this amendment was never there to give everyone a machine gun type weapon and certainly not at the prices they are today. Either those founding fathers were dumb or we are. Take your pick.
What we'll find out, if this case goes any further, is that slogans like “Consider your man card reissued” are merely the kind of speech that gun fanatics consider safe for public dissemination.
What they say behind closed doors will more resemble the vicious rhetoric of terrorists.
Go see what the gun fanatics say on YouTube. They can't open their mouths without spitting venom. They can't say words like "liberal" or "California" without turning every syllable into vile profanity promising murder and violence.
Those companies are sick, sick people. They are much worse than Jeff Bezos and I think him as an anti-human person. We all need to face responsibility for our actions. There is a lot of work to make companies compassionate and caring. I'm not sure that will ever happen but let's try.
Stay on target, America. Control gun ownership and the weapons sold!
1
Any attempt is better than no attempt. The gun folks should know they are the next cigarette
1
This is an absurd ruling. Whats next? Get in a car crash and sue Chevy because they say their car is fast? I will be shot down.
2
Will contribute cash to your cause, Sandy Hook families! Hope others join in too. Money speaks louder than words.
NYT should do a list of the people who take money from the NRA.
2
Does anyone truly believe that the automatic rifle manufacturers aren’t aware of how the AR-15 and other similar weapons are being used in these mass shootings? Of course they are. Why aren’t they aggressive in preventing their sale to any entity, human or otherwise, except the military?
Zyklon was around for 60 years as a pesticide before the Nazis perverted its use during the Holocaust to murder adults and children. It’s also my understanding that it continued to be used for its original purpose as a pesticide after that. However, Bruno Tesch, a chemist at the manufacturer of Zyklon B, was executed for selling the pesticide to the Nazis knowing how they planned to use it. He was held accountable.
How high does the death toll from these shootings need to be before the gun manufacturers are also held accountable? Their being executed, like Tesch, is extreme, and I don’t recommend that. I do recommend the legislation that puts in place the controls for sales and purchases with steep penalties for violating them.
1
Mr. Vogts “... the law needs to be dispassionately applied”. If one of the kids got killed was his kid, would he say that?
1
"Gun owners know that there's no situation for which semiautomatic AR/AK-style rifles are the right choice.
Get rid of them."
You are so right BO, and they are holding on to their "toy" that makes them like a powerful person, while children die as long as they can. If you want so desperately to feel so powerful join the armedforces, you will not have to buy, store, take out additional insurance and your family will be safer than they are right now with you and the assault weapon in their house.
An assault weapon will not change your anger or your self esteem.
Adam Lanza, by his looks, sure needed a "man card," to make him feel worthwhile. More reason why Remington should be held responsible.
@Wayne
Except he didn't buy it.
1
My heart goes out to those Sandy Hook families for their courage and determination. They know a 'ruling' will never bring back their children, but their actions will help prevent more tragedy. And I hope the courageous Parkland survivors, many of them students, will take heart in this; they face major challenges in their struggle for justice.
3 facts worth remembering:
(1) The issue of mental instability is avoidance. Of course that can be a factor. But the Las Vegas killer, who murdered over 50 people, had ZERO record of mental problems.
(2) The argument that clip capacity should not be limited, even in a pistol, is stupid. The shooter at the mall where congresswoman Giffords was wounded, and a few people killed, was overwhelmed when he stopped to reload. He had a clip capacity of 6 rounds. What if it was 8 or 10 or 12?
(3) The 'good guy with a gun' scenario borders on wishful thinking. During the above mentioned mall tragedy the shooter was stopped by an UNARMED person.
The gun industry has gotten away with their murderous narrative for too long. Responsible gun owners, tired of being caught in the middle, must demand legislation and honesty.
Society can not tolerate anymore senseless death.
74
@CD Friendly amendment: it's a magazine, not a clip.
1
@Juvenal451
thanks
1
I don't own an AR-platform rifle and it makes no sense to me that a firearms manufacturer would use aggressive marketing of any firearm to provoke mentally-troubled individuals to commit mass murder. Adam Lanza's mother could have prevented her son from accessing to the firearm he used to commit mass murder by purchasing an inexpensive rifle locker. The question is, knowing that her son had anger issues, why didn't she secure her firearms? She and many other innocent victims paid the ultimate price for her transgression.
1
The filing of a lawsuit is not the same as winning a lawsuit. The plaintiffs still have to find a jury that believes that gun suicides count as gun deaths. There are even a large plurality who believe that accidents don't count either.
Nothing will restore the lives lost in the Sandy Hook massacre, but this ruling will at least offer some measure of power to the families who lost their dear children and loved ones.
The helplessness of having to stand by while other massacres were committed with these weapons of mass murder, and the amoral manufacturers of them continued to advertise them as perfectly acceptable methods to assert manhood, must have been agonizing.
Sue them out of existence and pass laws that will assure these weapons will never be in the hands of anyone, for any reason.
3
...polls reflect 70% of Americans oppose assault rifles...it's time for the manufactures to ante up.
We all know 'it's not the gun, it's the person using it'....well, I'm really tired of hearing that as well....
It's time - we need to take control back - anyway we can - if it means bankrupting Remington, so be it.
There are over 340 million guns in America - the manufactures could stop making guns today, and the current inventory will last for decades.
Gun toting Americans are within their rights to defend their principals, not matter how misguided they may be.
We all know the, "I need a gun to defend myself' is ridiculous and I'm so tired of hearing that measly defense. It's proven, guns cause more accidental deaths than they do preventing someone from dying.
Guns, guns and more guns - it's not what the U.S. stands for....or does it?
2
... no one in the history of the world(?) has ever died where the instrument of death was not otherwise attached to a hand.
I know I'm not the only one who perceives the GREAT irony of a conservative congress that passes legislation to protect the makers of firearms that kill children and their teachers at the same time they make it a crime for anyone who chooses to help a woman end a six week pregnancy.
3
I appreciate the comments coming from gun owners themselves, who are applauding this happening! I wish all SANE gun owners who want smart gun laws would rise up, come together, and push for long-overdue changes to our insane gun laws that side with the NRA, gun manufacturers, and the like! You are the ones who can actually make this happen! It's PAST time!
1
Let me pose a question.
Does the NRA believe when the founders framed the right to bear arm that they would have sat idly on a side and watched the mayhem - children getting massacred? Or would they have amended the law?
When you answer this kindly do not insult the intelligence of the founders.
2
@Alpha
Did you not study history? Do you really believe they did not just fight the war among their own homes. A war where whole towns were rounded up, massed in a central location and slaughtered by the government forces. Men, women and children. A war where government forces when home to home killing the families of anyone suspected of being in the militia without evidence or even proof.
So no they did not sit idly by and just watch the mayhem. They placed an amendment into the constitution to keep it from taking place again. This is the origin and the intent of the 2A.
Now go study.
2
@Alpha
That's why they included a means to amend the constitution. A constitutional amendment would be the correct method to address the issue; not through activist lawyers and judges.
@India The idea is to debate and find the solution. In your anger and condescending reply you come across as radical but that perhaps has more to do with Pakistan and India.
I know the history, what I am asking is when the same guns are turned on its own people. I don't think founders would have debated this endlessly while its own people are murdered at their footsteps.
I give more credit to founders then to the current people in Government - Republicans and Democrats.
If I could I would have liked to debate you in a open forum and I say this conservatively - you will end in fiery crash.
That’s great, unfettered capitalism: companies will sell anything as long as they can make a buck. Zero regard for common sense or community wellbeing. And regulators are bribed or bullied into protecting corporate America at any cost. Who needs an AR15 in their life? How will your life be destroyed if you don’t have one?
The biggest obstacle to gun control is the 2nd Amendment. It’s not the NRA or the gun lobby who base their existence on the 2nd Amendment.
They are called "assault" rifles, not "protection" rifles and there is no justification for private citizens to own them.
3
@rich
They are called "assault rifles" because that's the term the media gave to them.....not because they are.
1
@Silence54
Gosh, you learn something new every day. "The U.S. Army defines assault rifles as "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and rifle cartridges." Wait, according to you, the media named them "assault rifles", not the US Army. Whatever you want to call them, be it assault rifles or protection rifles, they have been responsible for countless mass murders and have no business being in the hands of US civilians. Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Orlando....those gunmen sure needed "protection" against those "assaulting" people who died of gunshot wounds.
Excellent news! Don't stop this fight until the scourge of these horrid things is gone.
2
I live in Rio de Janeiro. This is a violent city, but only ranks number 12 in most violent cities in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is safer than any US city- why? People cannot easily get guns here and we have health care services for everyone. Put those two together and you do not have mass shootings like in the US. Health care and gun control are needed in the US now more than ever.
2
It's better for democracy if Americans fight this battle out in Congress. Yes, the Courts are a long-shot option; but the more direct and more democratic path is to get the votes in Congress to modify those sweeping federal protections. That will not be easy, obviously. But mobilizing for change is what democracy is all about.
Simple logic: fewer guns, safer America. Assault weapons are for warfare, not hunting and certainly not murder. But did the manufacturers encourage the use of these weapons for murder? I appreciate the intent of the suit but question how this is all being handled. There were 20 dead kids and 6 dead adults in Sandy Hook, all unarmed. That's real. So is my and everyone's anger and frustration. If we weren't such a gun-crazy society with so many military weapons available to civilians, those kids would be in middle school this year. And still the murders continue, singly to en masse. So, I don't know, maybe suing the manufacturers might help. Something has to.
1
Guns are meant for the sole purpose of killing.
Killing those who are intent on killing you or those you love.
And for practicing with those weapons so they can be used in a responsible fashion.
And for preventing, by their mere presence, people who would commit crimes from doing so.
And for defense of our nation in the hands of the military, police, and government agencies.
And for defense of our constitutional rights as citizens as declared in the Second Amendment.
So, yes, guns are weapons that can kill and are designed to do so. But it is not their sole use. Guns, like many things, are a tool which can be used for good or ill.
1
@Pops
If I see someone, other than a uniformed officer, carrying a gun in a public space, I, and anyone with me, will leave immediately. My safety is not improved by any of those indirect effects you tout.
I have no idea whether the carrier is trained, sane, or intent on senseless killing.
I will do anything I can to avoid dying in a dispute over a parking spot or a spilled drink, or an argument over who grabbed the bargain item first.
And we've seen how the "good guy with a gun" can be the first one dead when the cops arrive.
Finally. More people need to sue the gun companies and they should be prevented from manufacturing battlefield weapons to sell to private citizens.
3
It is interesting to read the comments about the underlying suit which question the sense of suing a manufacturer for something someone does with its product. What all are missing is that the basis on which the Connecticut Supreme Court allowed this action to move forward is the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, known here as "CUTPA". CUTPA counts are added to many lawsuits in Connecticut and every once in a while, one connects. This statute has brought many to heel for deceptive and unfair trade practices, and I would not be surprised if it succeeds here. How can that be? A seemingly indirect approach often works. Just ask Al Capone who was convicted and died in prison, not for murder, but for tax evasion.
1
A "60 Minutes" story showed twenty percent of the price of a ladder is to cover the manufacturer's legal fees when sued by somebody used a ladder the wrong way and got hurt.
Frivolous lawsuits have driven the cost of many items to manufacture way above what they should be.
A lawsuit like this will only hurt US manufacturers of anything and everything.
2
@mrmeat- you refer to frivolous lawsuits and US manufacturers bearing the burden. Certainly that may be the case in some situations BUT when you see the promotion of these firearms and the resulting carnage, I would hope you'd agree that this is not frivolous at all.
Gun manufacturers need to bear responsibility for their products. They are happy to make money so let them truly accept responsibility too. As we too often see it is only when it affects the money stream that change happens.
4
Addiction to guns and having the false feeling that combat weapons are necessary in civilian life to feel masculine along with a huge percentage of youth with combat training and military backgrounds contribute to this societal problem. The idea that combat weapons are necessary for men has been hyped by gun manufacturers feeding on this problem. The whole situation is madness in action. Any court action that finds a way to begin to address this collective insanity and addiction is welcome and way overdue. But this gun insanity is deep and entrenched and needs rebuke from the whole country. It is like the tobacco court cases only much worse. The child killings related to combat weapons are a malignant cancer in America.
6
Remember the Marlboro man?
I am not a gun owner, but I'm not for the repeal of the 2nd amendment. I used to carry a weapon and am a veteran.
What I am for is something which seems to be ignored by gun manufacturers and lawmakers.
Accountability and Safety.
Many new handguns do not even have safeties. There is technology out there which could be used to track stolen guns, enable transferable biometric safeties, and assist LEO's in their work.
We should be pushing for a way or ways to keep the Constitution and Bill of Rights intact; without living in fear of some fool acting out his or her aggression.
5
Few congressional actions are as offensive to the American people as its granting of special rights or privileges to certain industries. That some entities are shielded from lawsuits is diametrically opposite the fundamentally democratic principle that all are equal before the law. Whatever one thinks about guns and gun-ownership, the principle of shielding some but not others from civil liability - placing them, in effect, above the law - is incompatible with the bedrock principles of a free and democratic society in which the judicial branch is co-equal with the other two. That holds whether one is speaking of guns or plastic spoons. But that these special rights and privileges have been conferred on an industry that is ultimately responsible - morally, if not legally - for the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent Americans every year is especially outrageous and offensive.
19
Blessed be the Sandy Hook families and the Connecticut Supreme Court justices. May this go forward with volume and speed. May others scarred by gun violence join the lawsuit(s) both here in America and abroad (by whatever legal means possible). Let this courageous step be the most powerful first step to limit gun violence. Let gun manufacturers know that there will be significant penalties for what they do and they will be held to account. NY Times, please post any crowd-sourcing fund to help pay for the Sandy Hook families' legal counsel.
8
A sincere congratulations to these brave parents.
And a big THANK YOU!
Your actions will help protect everyone.
23
It is somewhat provocative, and one might say, rather odd, that the only people who can apparently have an objective view of the situation is someone who has actually been shot.
As a European I look upon the American dispute over such military weapons in people's hands as a form of collective madness. Why are so many people addicted to guns? Or is that that feel inadequate without them?
14
The problem: this is so polarized that we cannot have a civil debate.
My opinion: these very destructive types of guns should be hard to purchase, and one should be required to yearly, provide proof of insurance for negligent use of it. Perhaps the gun sales and ammunition sales should fund an insurance fund to compensate victims.
And there should be no advertising which may be the self inflicted wound the manufacturer's made.
Many will agree, many will disagree. It's just my opinion, based on living with the effects from being shot by an AR15 from just a few feet away, way back in 1975 before we even knew they existed. Teddy Roosevelt once said, speaking of politics, that the only one who could really speak about it was one who had been in the arena. I think those of us who have been on the wrong end of an AR15 have been in this arena and, perhaps, have more credibility than those who have not.
8
@Clayton H
The 2nd Ammendment of the Constitution is clear. The courts have ruled in election cases that taxes cannot be imposed in order to vote. The same should apply to firearms and their manufacturers. Otherwise we should require people who vote to have insurance because their decisions in the polling booth result in many more injuries and deaths than all the firearms held by provate owners.
1
Cigarettes, unlike guns, were not developed exclusively to kill people. However, tobacco companies were successfully sued for promotional advertising and targeting young adults resulting in addiction, high morbidity, and mortality. How can companies manufacturing an instrument developed specifically to harm or kill people and promoting sale with provocative advertisements cannot be sued? It does not make sense. It is time for Congress to remove cover of legal protection to gun manufacturers. We have more than 30,000 deaths per year resulting from gun violence and it is shocking that Congress is not willing to take any concrete steps to change it. Imagine if 300 people (1/100) acquired HIV infection due to improper screening of blood in blood banks. We expect lawsuits and people in high places going to jail. Why do we ignore this yearly massacre in the name of freedom? It is time rethink, America.
17
@Bharat tobacco companies hid the fact that their product could kill you. They hid research showing long term effects.
Many hundreds of people did get HIV film tainted blood. There were lawsuits.
People in high places, generally, do not go to jail in this country. Fix that and I bet we start seeing some changes.
1
We live in a country where alcohol and tobacco is controlled and illegal to minors; certain drugs are class a and completely illegal (although they do less harm than the prior two by far); whereas machines specifically designed to kill other humans beings are legal to own, carry, operate and stock in large quantities.
Common sense is not a factor in these decisions. Why? Because it is not about public health and safety.
It’s about profit and political clout.
Not the people.
25
@Shmoo We live in a country where firearms are controlled and illegal to minors. Certain firearms are illegal to own, except with a license so time consuming and expensive, nor many have one. Serious, like Top Secret, background checks and the ability of the government to come in and inspect your weapons and records at any time without warrants or notice.
Willing to bet alcohol and tobacco can be bought, carried, used and kept in large quantities and kills more people than firearms.
1
I am in awe of the Sandy Hook parents. Having experienced an unimaginable tragedy, they have pursued litigation against the gun manufacturers and Alex Jones. I think this is immensely courageous, especially given the uphill battle they faced in both. To stay engaged through the years so that other families should not have to endure what they did is selfless.
Their efforts will not be in vain, no matter the ultimate outcome. I hope that they can bring the gunmakers and Alex Jones down. No one needs an automatic weapon unless they are deployed to a combat zone as part of a military unit.
25
Allowing immunity for gun companies at the federal level is a mistake that must eventually be neutralized.
16
@Harcourt
"Allowing immunity for gun companies at the federal level is a mistake that must eventually be neutralized."
Except that they don't have immunity except from liability for a third party misusing their product. They're still liable for product faults and illegal acts.
1
@Logicus Prime
I want them liable for third party misuse.
@Harcourt
"I want them liable for third party misuse."
So how do you feel about Ford being responsible if someone runs over a pedestrian with a Mustang?
I have been a steadfast supporter of Nicole and ultimately of the Sandy Hook parents. I know that this is not a win and could never be... I love you. Why is the marketing angle for these killing machines centered around complimenting a weak persona, a struggling kiddo, a near adult whom felt so under pressure that he took the lives of others first.
1
Believe what you want. But if this decision stands up, any company that makes dangerous products can be held liable. Medical companies that experiment with live viruses, environmental companies that add chemicals to purify toxic waters, companies that do research related to fetuses, and any company that does genetic research may find themselves going out of business. This is a really bad decision.
2
Each example you gave is that of advancing human health. How does owning a gun without background checks compare? Why the hesitation for background checks?
20
May the gentle jesus, meek and mild, forbid that corporations and the wealthy be in any way held accountable, would that be the theory here?
The comment you replied to said NOTHING about being against background checks. Furthermore, the weapon in this case was purchased by someone who PASSED a background check.
1
Sadly, this is all about making money and using the ridiculously vague Second amendment to do it. The right to bear arms was not meant to be a license to kill children, yet as long as America continues to allow itself to be ruled by corporations who can buy off our “leaders” with impunity, this kind of thing will continue. It’s good to see that this suit has been brought. Maybe one day soon the American people will have the representation in Congress to stop these commercial interests from driving our country over a cliff.
23
I guess these AR-15 manufacturers need to “dispassionately” make money, no matter how much blood of school-children is spilled.
10
Think about this for a second...if a weapon is used in a mass shooting, the gun manufacturers LOST a potential customer (the gunman) along with several other potential customers (the victims). Do you honestly believe that school shootings are part of a marketing strategy to make money?
It is beyond my comprehension how these families cope with such political indifference to their plight. To each and every family, you are True heroes; thank you for your advocacy to rein in this domestic terror of that continues to claim innocent victims. You must lay your head on pillows each night teary eyed, emotionally exhausted asking why isn't anyone listening and doing something? This political hand wringing must be so painful and offer no closure to monstrous grief. True heroes. You will prevail.
23
This will wind up in the Supreme court where the conservatives will support the gun manufacturer. We are a sorry excuse for a compassionate country.
10
You buy a bottle of beer and it says "drink responsibly." The company that brewed the beer would be better off if you drank until you passed out, but they make at least a token attempt at accepting responsibility.
Did the gun manufacturers advise their dealers and customers that assualt weapons were extraordinarily lethal and unsuited to any known purpose except combat? Did they do the right thing, even if it meant losing a sale?
12
The next move should be from the hospitals and our shallow healthcare system. Who has been paying the tab on all these victims of all these shootings? Where do these bills go? Are they swallowed by the hospitals and passed on to other consumers or is it another government bailout, the kind of bailout that the Republicans/NRA toadies detest?
6
“Many gun-rights groups also raised concerns, including the National Rifle Association, which contended in its brief that allowing the case to move ahead stood to “eviscerate” the gun companies’ legal protections.”
Please God, please help us “eviscerat”e the gun companies legal protections. Why should they have any? Live by the sword (gun), die by the sword (gun). It’s only just.
10
God bless the families.
5
On July 14, 2016 a murderer drove a truck up onto a sidewalk in Nice, France and killed 86 people.
Is the maker of the truck liable?
3
But we are trying to ban guns here. Not trucks. How is it relevant?
The odds of guns harming humans lives are incomparable to a washing machine or a car. It is a weapon designed to take lives.
We regulate alcohol, tobacco, chemicals. We made drugs illegal. We can decrease the odds of mass shooting by banning machines designed to kill people.
And there you have:
A. Weapon. Made. To. Kill.
That’s the difference. Reason all you want, what it comes down to, is profit and political clout.
It is not about common sense. Because if it is, there would be no argument.
18
@MIKEinNYC
Trucks are not designed, and widely marketed and sold by unethical and immoral manufacturers with the sole intent of killing lots of people.
1
@MIKEinNYC
No Mike, but imagine that the truck used was specially built to kill the most people possible, spikes sticking off the front, bulletproof windows, tire shields, maybe even bulldozer track drive so it would keep going over as many people as possible, would you still feel the same way?
2
Children murdered in their classrooms and the response of the gun industry and the NRA is “more guns”. Tells me all I need to know about that gang. Go Sandy Hook parents.
16
A godsend to the lawyers. Shall we insist that every manufacturer of every product search out any and all possible ways their products can be misused before marketing them? How will they know they’ve covered all the bases?
Perhaps we ought to ban manufacturing altogether.
2
They were used exactly as designed: to kill.
And these particular guns were designed to kill as many targets as possible as efficiently as possible.
1
@scott_thomas
Clearly you’re part of the problem on this topic, that mentality shows a complete lack of intelligence and compassion, that’s why we need lawyers instead of the commonsense that so obviously missing from the dialogue.
This seems ridiculous given the fact basically every other court which has looked at this has abided by the law passed by Congress and barred the suit. Of course, this same court unilaterally choose to overrule a law passed by the state permitting executions for those who tortured and killed women and young children, so it’s not so surprising when you consider the body that issued the ruling.
More importantly, on the factual issues, there is no evidence that Lanza ever saw any of the promotional materials cited by the plaintiffs; he is far more likely to been influenced by video games, movies, television or other factors than he was by the manufacturer’s ad.
Given that the plaintiffs’ goal is to scare Remington into settling so they won’t have to turn over certain materials and, more importantly, that the plaintiffs’ won’t be able to provide any evidence that Lanza was influenced or even saw such materials, the case should be thrown out as soon as possible.
1
“In oral arguments, lawyers for the companies argued that the weapons were marketed as being used for home defense...”
Home defense? How many home invaders is it reasonable to expect at any given time? A ludicrous argument that hints at the conspiracy theories about military takeovers associated with extreme second amendment supporters. What will it take to finally accept that no American citizen needs an AR-15 for any reason?
22
@ArtIsWork Most home invasions are perpetrated by several people.
The tension between gun manufacturers' profit motive and the general public's desire to keep guns out of the wrong hands is dire.
If you realize that the gun manufacturers are equating profit and death, it's beyond dire. It's obscene.
13
Bernie Sanders voted in favor of the federal law mentioned in this article which blindly shields negligent (even malicious) acts by gun companies. For this reason he will NEVER get my vote.
7
@What Comes Around...
No it doesn't. Gun manufacturers are not shielded from malicious acts or the consequences of making defective products.
2
Apparently the Connecticut legal system is still treating the parents with kid gloves. Don't upset them, give them what they want, don't argue. That, and the liberals are conducting themselves as usual by exploiting any emotion invoking incident to the fullest extent possible to get what they want and, in typical liberal activist style, are willing to run over the rule of law to get it.
3
Why wouldn’t those parents be treated with kid gloves? Even if they hadn’t suffered an unspeakable tragedy, they have done nothing wrong.
1
It’s actually a judge’s ruling, obtained through proper legal procedure, but there’s no reason to expect Trump supporters to understand that. It’s much easier for them to shriek about a purported liberal conspiracy and denigrate the parents of murdered kids than try to understand a court ruling.
Yeah. We don’t want anymore children gunned down in school. Do you have a problem with that?
Gun companies make the likes of Martin Shkreli look like choir boys. They are evil and care not one whit about the carnage their products inflict. A pox on them, their shills in the NRA and the cowards in Washington to support them. The land of the free and home of the brave indeed.
19
I despise the NRA—ultimately responsible for this assault on gun manufacturers because of their unwillingness to negotiate reasonable gun safety laws. Gun owners will eventually lose big because of the wing nuts in the NRA
14
Enact federal legislation which requires that all guns be issued Certificates of Title like with cars, that they be Federally registered, and that gun owners be required to maintain liability insurance with high deductibles to indemnify people harmed by their guns. Limit the number of guns that people may own to some reasonable number.
Like with cars, impose strict, vicarious liability upon gun owners for their direct or otherwise negligent conduct in connection with their guns.
As far as bullets go, the eggs I buy are imprinted with a traceable code. Do that with bullets.
This will not eliminate all gun violence but it will cut it back and provide at least some remuneration for victims.
As far as I can see, none of this in any way conflicts with that pesky 2d Amendment which would, of course, stay in full force and effect.
21
awesome
12
What a ridiculous ruling by a State court. This will make for every State making every company in America liable, for toasters to tractors.
4
Exactly! As every company should be liable. It’s all about responsibility, which companies lack. Citizens are responsible; companies are profit machines.
19
@Wasted
Liable if their products are defective, yes, but not for the the misuse of their product for which they had no control....
1
Coming soon to a courtroom near you: A man sues Ford because a drunk driver killed his son. A woman sues Mountain Dew because her daughter got diabetes. A man sues the plastic fork industry because another person stabbed him with it. This is garbage.... garb...bage... If you need to sue someone sue the government as they are the ones who allow these products into the hands of civilians with little to no training or background checks.... If you need to blame someone make sure you blame the right person in the scenario, not some perceived boogieman.
2
@Mystery Lits
It’s exactly that kind of upside down logic that pushes sensible people to ask for bans on these things, if people think that a can of Mountain Dew and an automatic machine gun should be in the same conversation about liability, they shouldn’t be allowed to buy guns.
Ban the Semi-Automatic Now! Pierre does not not run America and his NRA represents a very vocal and money-making minority, not the now-vocal majority!
9
Good.
But wait! Does this mean the Connecticut Supreme Court is part of the hoax conspiracy theory that the whole thing was staged?
1
Travesty of justice where it seems lawyers are always looking for people to blame and sue. I don't own a gun and never intend to but the company didn't pull the trigger, the apparently deranged person did and the left wing CT court just blamed the company instead of the perpetrator.
1
I would agree except in this case no person is being sued. All companies serve one purpose: to make a profit. It seems acceptable to me that there should be a process to temper that drive for profit when it goes against the public good. We shouldn’t expect any company on its own to act in the public’s good.
13
Good..!! The Bushmaster and similar weapons do not belong in the hands of civilians. These are weapons of war that only belong in the hands of the U.S. military. The manufacturers know this. Yet they put profit over lives. Oh look: you’re a man if you own one of these. Please. Such demented and twisted thinking and behavior only benefits the bottom line while destroying our society. My two cents.
8
I hope that the Sandy Hook families can get the Justice that they deserve.
Hold the gun lobby liable, and put their feet to the fire
10
Not because guns like that don’t belong in people’s hands in the first place but because Adam Lanza did not gain his man card when he used it on those poor helpless children? His mom was the one that bought the gun, what about hers? With a puny rock like that to take out a Goliath NRA, divine intervention will be required beyond just a lucky shot to kill it.
We must all demand justice for the babies.
3
There needs to be a requirement that any wannabe G.I. Joe applying for an ASSAULT RIFLE permit be required to look at the autopsy photos of a fellow human hit by a copper jacketed .223 round. It's sobering and you won't forget it.
4
Great! Sue every last penny out of them. All of them. And bankrupt the NRA also while you are at it. Future generations will be thankful.
9
So someone stole property that he had no legal right to then used that object improperly to commit a crime yet somehow the maker of this object is to blame so chevys drive drunk video games and music make kids commit crime please stop the only one who is responsible is the shooter and only the shooter
1
@EAH
All the sad analogies in the world don’t help what is clearly a huge problem. Trucks and cars are not made to kill people, yes they can be subverted for that use but explain to me why someone needs an automatic machine gun? Don’t tell me it’s for target practice, just wiggle your index finger and you can shoot as many shots as you want, one at a time.
1
This isn't a "major ruling." This is an itsy, bitsy baby step.
Repeal the Second Amendment.
6
"a tragedy that cannot be forgotten. But no matter how tragic,” he added, “no matter how much we wish those children and their teachers were not lost and those damages not suffered, the law needs to be applied dispassionately.”
Only in merika could a person get away with saying something this stupid.
4
its about time, sue the heck out of them. then sue the NRA who promoted these weapons
5
This is good and necessary
2
"The law needs to be applied dispassionately"...Remington lawyer.
Response: A law that you bought and paid for to your corrupt friends in congress.
6
GOOD NEWS!
3
Back in the day, CA ran a successful ad campaign naming tobacco company executives as the country's biggest drug-dealers. Perhaps similar needs to be done with gun company CEOs, America's most prolific serial killers,
14
Thank you Sandy Hook parents. It’s time for the stranglehold of the NRA on American politics to be over. Only crazies want to own military grade weapons. Period. End of story.
6
Given the fact that Adam Lanza stole the AR-15 from his mother used in the school shooting, I don't see how Remington's marketing could even be deemed relevant.
Second, in order for the Court's ruling to pass any kind of basic test, they would had to have concluded that Lanza would have been unable to perpetrate the crime with a similar weapon. There is no way to arrive at such an absurd conclusion.
Some of the biggest mass shootings and in fact the largest school shooting on record (Virginia Tech) were accomplished with handguns.
This lawsuit is because parents have to sue SOMEONE with deep pockets. Hopefully, the families will become bankrupted in legal fees by the time this frivolous lawsuit is thrown out.
“These families were not going to go away,” he added, “no matter how long it took.”
God Bless these families for not allowing their little ones to die in vain.
10
This has nothing to do with the Second Amendment sorry to tell you. It has everything to do with a harmful product that is marketed directly to insecure white men.
15
Visit Israel—they have guards at all their schools. We have guards at all of our court houses but are unwilling to provide guards at the schools. Every school in the U.S. has not only a principal but usually an assistant principal. Get rid of the assistant principals and hire a guard. We could also get rid of the “gun free” signs. The Aurora Illinois shooting was at a company with a “gun free” policy—fat lot of good that did. London with extreme gun laws had 121 stabbings in 2018—they have no guns but a lot of kitchen knives.
How would students and families of color feel about that?
1
@Tracey
They would be happy their children are protected.
Make gun manufacturers and gun owners criminally responsible for their products and the problem will be solved. Ask yourself how all those weapons get into the hands of criminals and the lunatic fringe? They are purchased and resold, misdirected, waylaid and bought through a host of other illegal methods about which a whole lot of people at all levels of the firearms industry are only too aware. This is one of the world’s most corrupt enterprises and a grossly stupid interpretation of a single amendment to the US Constitution makes it all possible. What a mad nation.
3
Hope these people prevail. America has been awash with guns and violent men of all ages and races since the 1960s.
4
To those complaining about the stretched theory of law in this case, look long and hard at the theory behind the gift congress gave to the gun industry when it shielded it from all liability for the harm caused by the dangerous toys they make and market. Money. Fear. Power. Report cards. The NRA, the biggest American terrorist group, has you all duped.
10
Thank you for the good news.
1
In the lawsuit, the families seized upon the marketing for the AR-15-style Bushmaster used in the 2012 attack, which invoked the violence of combat and used slogans like “Consider your man card reissued.”
Gun manufacturers: Consider your get-out-of-jail-free card revoked.
6
When I am reminded of Sandyhook, I see only 20 first graders and six teachers. Innocents, all. They did not deserve this.
And yet Republicans in this country insist upon protecting gun nuts at every turn. It seems that no level of terror moves these fools.
The Second Amendment is not unlimited. With so much potential to inflict harm, gun ownership requires as much licensing and insurance requirements as we uphold for automobile ownership.
7
Here we go. Its ashame finger pointing is a way of life these days. Common sense is a rare feature we humans had which now seems to not exist. Hold the person that commited the crime accountable not the manufacturer of the pants he was wearing at the time of the crime. Pants you wonder.... I would bet the Sandy Hook shooter had a bullet or two in one of his pants pockets. If he did have bullets in his pants pockets at the time of the shooting the pants manufacturer is liable as much as the gun manufacturer. Im not sure he was wearing pants at the time of the crime. Oh gosh. The city of Sandy Hook is to blame also. The city provided the roads and sidewalks the gunman used to aide in commiting his horrible crime. Oh boy. Lets not forget about the steel manufacturer that supplied the gun manufacturer the steel to make the weapon used in the crime. Oops. I forgot about the United Ststes treasury department that produced and circulated the cash to manufacture and purchase the weapon, ammo, clothes, shoes, roads and sidewalks used in the commission of the crime. I guess what I am trying to say is one person commited the crime. That one person is the only one that can be held accountable. Common sense. Its easy. Just try it sometime.
2
Charlotte Bacon, 6
Daniel Barden, 7
Olivia Engel, 6
Josephine Gay, 7
Dylan Hockley, 6
Madeleine Hsu, 6
Catherine Hubbard, 6
Chase Kowalski, 7
Jesse Lewis, 6
Ana Márquez-Greene, 6
James Mattioli, 6
Grace McDonnell, 7
Emilie Parker, 6
Jack Pinto, 6
Noah Pozner, 6
Caroline Previdi, 6
Jessica Rekos, 6
Avielle Richman, 6
Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Allison Wyatt, 6
Rachel D'Avino, 29, teacher's aide
Dawn Hochsprung, 47, principal
Anne Marie Murphy, 52, teacher's aide[28]
Lauren Rousseau, 30, teacher
Mary Sherlach, 56, school psychologist
Victoria Leigh Soto, 27, teacher
9
Common sense says ban the guns.
@Zejee
Yeah let's ban the gun that kills less people than hands and feet....You would be much better served by addressing the cause and not the tool.
How, pray tell, does "Consider your man card reissued"
Have ANYTHING to do with this case?
His MOTHER bought the gun.
The main obstacle to gun regulation is the 2nd Amendment. I would like the anti-gun crowd to make a concerted effort to repeal the Amendment. Anything short of that is hypocritical and undermines all the other rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. If you can regulate the right to bear arms, you can regulate the right of free speech, press, religion, assembly...
@Qcell If one attempts to repeal it without replacing it with an updated (safer) version one would potentially also have to figure out how to get votes from the silent majority. The line is quite thin when one desires to be President of the USA. 5% here and 2% there--it all adds up to allowing the other guy to win.
Guns are designed to kill and the 2nd Amendment protects the right to own and carry them. The concept of finding a gun maker liable for a gun killing situation is quite laughable indeed under those circumstances.
But something does need to be done. 40,000 gun related deaths each year is, of course, unacceptable. Zero would be most acceptable! My suggestion is limiting the firing rate of all guns to six shots per minute and taking the quick release magazine off the market for all firearms. That will not stop killing but it will stop the one-man/50 kills situation that have been getting worse (now around the globe too).
I was a soldier. I loved my M16! But a 22-shot pistol can be just as deadly at close range. And many of these recent killings have been just like that. People go after the "assault" rifle as if that were a noble goal that would solve the problem at hand. I don't see it.
Raise the legal gun ownership age to 21 for high caliber weapons and reduce the firing rate per minute down to a reasonable number. That would be progress!
BTW in the UK they want to stop the selling of kitchen knives in single (low cost) packages. Guess why...
No, Adam Lanza stole the gun he used to murder innocent people, no advertising involved. Are automakers next? Their ads are filled with performance issues, powerful engines, faster speeds. Should they be held accountable for every accident where speed was a factor? Are automakers going to be held responsible for my speeding ticket? Is the Japanese Ginzu super blade which slices effortlessly through tomatoes going to be held accountable for every accidental finger cut? 🙄🙄🙄
And while I am at it, in all terrorism and mass murder cases, parents also should be held liable for their child’s actions.
Any decent country would be celebrating the 7 year anniversary of a full repeal of gun ownership rights. Meanwhile in America, the parents of murdered children need to fight for decades through a skeptical legal system in order to prove that those murders were indeed a problem to be addressed. How could anyone have pride in this cesspool?
5
If cigarette companies could be sued for selling a product that caused mass casualties, the same should be true for gun manufacturers. If the Boeing 737 can be grounded all over the world because of two accidents, then logically assault rifles should be completely wiped off the map. And thanks to Alex Jones, the devastated families who lost their children are now themselves subject to more death threats. Are you kidding me? Enough is enough. You go Connecticut. Crack 'em good.
8
Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son Dylan was killed in his first-grade classroom: “No one has blanket immunity. There are consequences. We want our day in court to see why they do this this way, and what needs to change.”
“No one has blanket immunity.” So what’s so crazy-liberal un-American about that?
1
Good! The stranglehold of the gun lobby on American life and politics should end.
This specific massacre broke my heart forever.
Yet, no laws were made to protect us.
Accountability in this wild West era of lies, racism and heartleness, is refreshing...
1
You are more at risk to die by a gun by owning a gun. Period.
2
On a related note; how is the investigation into the $36 million NRA got from Russia to give to the Trump Campaign?
4
The beautiful children, now angels in the heavens, are cheering in the way only children can cheer.
5
Presidentially speaking: Interesting that this time around one doesn’t hear much from democrat candidates about updating the Second Amendment. They’re all tough as nails about the climate but the “arms” thing they let lawyers try their luck at continuing to water-down the very document that protects us all.
One reason is something Republicans (and some democrats) don’t like to hear: Grandpa the democrat and maybe even Daddy the democrat had guns hanging up over the fireplace! Oh sure, their kids (now adults) talk about reasonable gun laws being a necessity, but they shy away from making it a central part of their platforms. Why? Because they’re scared to death that enough democrats love guns and wouldn’t vote for them. 5% deviation is enough...to lose.
Cigarette companies are legally liable for smoking because they covered up research proving cigarettes caused cancer. Car companies are liable because they sometimes cover up defects, but gun companies are not liable because their product has been about killing from day one and they are protected by the Constitution of the United States!
We’ve lived through the “Arms Race” well, what exactly is an “Arms”? The answer is scary: Chemical, Nuclear, Biological, etc. Them arms we did’t have back when the Country was founded! So, this right to keep and bare arms really, really does need to be updated! On the one side strengthened and on the other made safer. We know this! 40,000 deaths a year is a huge number! Let’s get this done!
1
Please God, let this lawsuit succeed.
8
@Linda
Never going to happen....and it shouldn't.
this should also open the way for people who die from obesity issues and diabetes to be able to sue the cutlery manufacturers.
1
As a former US Army soldier stationed in the Saigon Support Command in the Republic of Vietnam in 1971, I carried an M-16 rifle and an M-79 grenade launcher. The AR-15 is a prototype of the M-16 rifle. The M-16 rifle is a weapon of war as is the AR-15. Both have no business on the streets of America.
The right to life and the pursuit of happiness predominates over a fallacious notion by the US Supreme Court that under the Second Amendment one has a right to defend their own home with a weapon of war.
Enough carnage and innocent blood of children has been sacrificed on the altar of the Remington and Industrial Gun Lobby.
19
Cigarette ads have warnings.
Guns should too.
(and cars btw...)
This is a courageous fight. Bravo to the families of Sandy Hook who went through devastation and are making it clear that no one should be killed because someone feels like owning a lethal weapon.
7
The lawsuit is civil action in tort. In tort, it is not enough to allege the defendant acted badly. Rather, you must prove the defendant acted badly, AND such act was the cause of your damage.
I cannot see how the defendants can prove the causation element of their case. There are literally dozens of AR-15 style rifles on the market. The weapon was purchased by Lanza's mother, who made it available to him. Did she ever see any of the Bushmaster advertisements? Why did she pick that manufacturer, rather than Colt or Smith and Wesson? Was she influenced at all by Remington's advertising? Did she even see it?
The incident was a tragedy. But the cause was not a Remington advertisement. It was Mrs. Lanza's extremely poor judgement to make a firearm available to her son, who was in no mental condition to be in possession of any kind of firearm. Would you sue GM or Chrysler for selling a 700 horsepower car that some wacky parent then makes available to her mentally impaired son? GM and Chrysler also advertise their high performance vehicles as very macho.
3
@RM
OOPS, I MEANT, I CANNOT SEE HOW THE PLAINTIFFS CAN PROVE CAUSATION.
1
Referendum to repeal 2nd amendment.
5
@RonRich A referendum can't override an amendment. The procedure for changing/repealing an amendment are much more difficult than a simple vote.
@Steve
The referendum would be the impetus to repeal the amendment. The Sandy Hook children deserve our efforts as do the thousands of others who have died in vain...or will.
2
Any politician who still supports this absurd pro-killer stance in Congress that the makers of war weapons for civilians enjoy, needs to be crushed in the next elections, including St. Bernie.
3
Finally, America the land of lawyers and litigation, is doing some good. Let's bankrupt gun and ammo manufacturers, and Trump Industries. The heck with waiting for our government.
2
In related news, the CT supreme court has paved the way for anyone injured in a drunk driving incident to sue the liquor store or bar that sold alcohol to a drunk driver. They can sue the bar tender. They can sue the farmer who sold the hops, the farmer who sold the wheat, the company that sold the fertilizer to the farmer that grew the hops, the aluminum company that made the kegs and beer cans. The trucking company that shipped the kegs to the bar or liquor store is culpable, as is the oil company that sold the diesel to the company that trucked the beer to the bar. Ford, Chevy, Buick? Yup. They sold a car to a person who used that car to injure another while drunk. Mercedes & BMW? Forget it! They're not only guilty of selling a deadly weapon, they committed the sin of selling to the "privileged"...
Adam Lanza's mother purchased her guns legally. She passed a background check and every other legal hurdle. Her deranged, mentally ill son stole the guns from her and used them to kill her and scores of innocent children and teachers.
Allowing victim's families to sue the manufacturer of a legal product that was purchased by a person who passed all the legal tests to purchase that product is a desperate move on the part of CT.
You simply can't hold responsible the manufacturer of a legal product that is misused by someone who didn't even purchase it.
2
You CAN sue a bar or liquor store who sells alcohol to an intoxicated person or a minor who then gets into a drunk driving accident. Also, if they sell alcohol to an intoxicated or underage person, even if that person doesn’t cause an accident, they have committed a crime.
2
If you think we don’t have a reql problem here.
1. Google “Bushmaster.” You can buy them online and have them shipped to you.
2. Note the stuff that comes with: a flash suppressor, for example.
3. Note that a lot of the ammo sold is stamped “NATO.” That tells you it conforms to NATO calibers, and is not really a civilian round.
4. The oft-cited “well, it’s not an automatic weapon,” is garbage for two reasons: a) conversion info is all over the internet, and b) professional military rarely if ever fires full-auto. Way too hard to aim, and blows through your ammo too fast.
5. None of these weapons were originally designed for self-defense or hunting. Guess what they were designed for?
6. The Second Amendment was written when gun tech was not terribly advanced, rates of fire were lowish, and there just wasn’t much diff between civilian and military weapons. This is no longer true.
7. Crichton was right about one thing: guns put way too much power in your hand, without requiring any discipline to attain it. And assault rifles are worse.
Yes, somebody TRAINED can do amazing things with a revolver. Yes, somebody TRAINED and practiced can do a lot of damage with a plain old Remington bolt-action rifle.
A Bushmaster is not like that. It’s DESIGNED to be easy. And they look kewl. And they’re marketed as military weapons. And they’re linked to var-right crazy.
That’s why the loons like them. And that’s why if we had universal checks, mandated training, and licensure.
6
All i can think about when i see the words Sandy Hook is tragedy, pain, sadness. No words can describe the suffering these families have endured. 20 children and 6 teachers...my God . Memory eternel
2
This inane lawsuit does nothing more than go after how an inanimate object is advertised. I guess some people are offended by the advertising language.
Reminds me of beer commercials appealing to guys macho instincts.
I am disgusted by the money and effort that is going to accomplish absolutely nothing.
1
This decision is legally baseless, laughably political and will not survive. "Wrongful marketing?" What exactly is that? Did Bushmaster advertise its gun for the purpose of killing school children? Of course not. "Take back your manhood" does not equal equal or imply "Go kill children."
There are literally hundreds of products that can be lethally misused by evil, deranged persons. What are you going to do with all of those?
If you anti-gun zealots had a lick of sense and truly cared about curbing violence, you would focus on video games and the glorification of violence permeating our culture. The Sandy Hook shooter and all the other young men who commit these crimes have repeatedly been shown to have been video game addicts and otherwise steeped in violent media.
1
from a retired attorney and FL voter F/70
Either lots of trolls among these comments or a complete failure to separate state and federal law(s) and legal content of what can be parallel state and federal law(s). Example here may be our federal government's truth-in-advertising enforcers in the Federal Trade Commission/DOJ created by Congressional acts and cases decided in federal courts.
Versus state-level truth-in-advertising laws typically enforced by each state's Attorney General acting in that state's courts . . .with the final decider of law in that state the state Supreme Court. As happened here in CT.
There is nothing "illegal" about an attorney invoking a state-level statute/law and getting his or her state's highest appellate court, the Supreme Court, to agree with the arguments made . . .solely under state law.
I predict that Chief Justice Roberts, SCOTUS court, will decline to review this state's top court decision . . .thereby tacitly affirming that the Second Amendment has boundaries. That this CT Supreme Court decision shall stand as a viable workaround for those state legislatures that choose to follow this blueprint for overcoming weapons manufacturers grip on Congress.
If we elect both House and Senate Dem majorities sufficient to legislate (Senate fillabuster rule!), we may even get a Congress that endorses what CT has done - explicitly. Before moving to repeal the shameful weapons laws arising from a distortion of the Second Amendment.
5
Our legal system allowed Matthew Whitaker to be acting AG, our congress received much more money than Stormy Daniels from the NRA, to encourage laws to protect gun manufactures, and our department of justice has guidelines not to indict a sitting president as corrupt as Mr. Trump.
1
Why not amend the “second amendment” to outlaw all guns as most civilized countries do? Even China outlaws guns. And stop selling weapons to other countries so they will be safer. This will make America and the world a better place and the money saved on jails, policing, military can be spent on universal medical care coverage, education, free university and useful trades training, small business loans...
@Stephen Gergely There is a procedure for that. It's incredibly difficult to do, however. Since you'd need 38 states to ratify the amendment, and 44 states have the right to bear arms in their STATE constitutions, I don't see the state legislatures ratifying such an amendment.
It's about time. Next, let's clear the way for victims of drunk driving to sue the automobile companies.
@Ed Facetious. We can sue Gun companies that make weapons/ sell them for no other purpose than killing people.
1
@Ray Sipe
Please stop parroting the silly and fictitious cliche that firearms have "no other purpose." It simply isn't true. Approximately 5 million to 10 million AR-15 style rifles exist in the U.S. and the vast, vast majority of them are used for sporting uses including hunting, target shooting, competitions and collecting. Have there been 5 million to 10 million mass shootings in America using these firearms? No there have not.
The lawsuit hinges on if the gun manufacturer specifically targeted unstable individuals with their advertising.
Not sure how this could hold up in court. There's a plethora of evidence that maniacs use what's at their disposal. That's the issue. And it's far out of the scope of this lawsuit.
This is a prime example of why gun manufacturers should be at the forefront of demanding a complete overhaul of our background check system. From the ground up. And I say this as a gun owner with a few rifles myself. I don't mind better background checks done in good faith. What I do mind is the law being used specifically to discourage civilian firearm ownership.
And as an aside, all guns are weapons of war - Sidearms, shotguns, rifles. That's not the issue. Knowingly advertising to mentally unstable people is the only issue that should be considered. Anything outside that scope is bias at play.
A few people with military experience and personal knowledge of handling military weapons have commented here in favor of banning such weapons for civilian use. Such people need to be placed front and center in media ads challenging the NRA. They're voices carry a lot more weight than the average opponent of NRA insanity.
3
I wouldn’t celebrate just yet. This isn’t sure to head to the Supreme Court where we all know how it is going to be ruled.
Gun industry having a vast protection by law is in itself a big problem like NRA having tax free status.
Both needs to be killed by AR-15 and make a level playing field.
We the people, who wants to live freely and don't want to hurt anyone needs to have a right to peaceful walk and sleep in my neighborhood.
It's time to take the fight to them.
Thank you God for the bravery of the Sandy Hook families. I pray that they win and win big and there will be many to follow.
3
This is wonderful news. Go plaintiffs!
Every shooter was a good guy with a gun the day before he decided to be a bad guy with a gun. Any sane society should not permit access to rapid firearms to decide whether a buyer will always be a good guy or will be a bad guy one day.
For all his vainglorious and self-regarded humorist approach to the Constitution and individual rights, Justice Scalia ultimately was not a word-smith. How else could he have misconstrued the term "people" to mean "person"? So I guess he wasn't as bright as he assumed himself to be.
Thank God. Thank you to this court from parents everywhere.
1
Great news.
First step won: Suing the gun companies.
Next step: Suing and litigating against the families and the shooter (if still alive) who perpetrates gun violence.
You want to own a gun? You want your kid to own a gun?
Then be ready to take responsibility and pay the consequences.
2
“Remington may never have known Adam Lanza, but they had been courting him for years,”
Does the plaintiffs lawyer have ANY proof of that?
Can the plaintiff even prove that Adam Lanza even read a Remington AD or viewed one.
The Connecticut Court just gave a "fishing license" to lawyers to file any "pie in the sky" argument they can come up with an hope it allows them to sucker some jury into awarding them a Winning Lottery ticket
Every manufacturer in this country is likely to join together to fight this tax on commerce that the Ct Court is trying to place upon Americans
This is great news.
Now we must get to work.
Vote for Congress people that are not beholden to the NRA and its lobbies; then strike down the "Shield" law that protects gun manufacturer's from being held responsible for the deaths that their products cause!
Gun makers should not be selling assault style weapons in a country at peace, anymore than they should be selling landmines or chemical weapons.
2
Finally, a glimmer of hope.
Could you imagine sending your six year to school and losing them to gun fire? And then being told you can't hold the people responsible who profit from the sale of the gun? Ridiculous.
Why can't we hold the people who profit responsible? The gun manufacturers, store owners, online sellers and gun show sales people. If they sell a gun that kills a six year old, they should lose some of their profit.
1
I just attended a mandatory training session on the opioid epidemic and learned the difference between addiction and dependence. I learned that children and teens get hooked after listening to music glorifying some of the "pills" out there. Listen to that trash/entertainment long enough and you want to be a part of that culture. What has that got to do with Sandy Hook? Well, when this tragedy occurred, and the murderer's home was searched, they found that Lanza was into video shooter games, the kind with blood and guts. Well I suppose that could have an influence on a person and it was postulated as such and then denied; largely by the media and entertainment industry. So now it comes down to manufacturers being responsible. Whatever happened to individual responsibility? The entertainment industry denied that their products could have had an effect. Psychologists might say otherwise. Manufacturers need to be held responsible for what they make but should not be held culpable for what someone does with a gun.
An item is made and sold in good faith. Once purchased, its use or misuse is on the head and hands of the purchaser.
@old sarge: AK/AR 47s aren’t sold to and bought by in civilians in good faith. What on earth does a civilian need such a WMD for?
3
@Anna
I must have missed the part about "need" in the 2nd Amendment....Ever hear of personal responsibility?????
I'm hoping that congress is paying attention, and will present legislation to completely rescind the protection gun makers cower behind.
5
Six plus years to get a modicum of justice for those poor children, staff, and their families. The wheels of justice turn slowly. but they do turn.
5
Congratulations to the Sandy Hook organization and their legal team. I’ve been with you since the beginning and I hope this ruling provides some peace to the parents.
10
Fantastic progress made. Reasonable people united.
13
It's a shame that any court took this case. There is no basis for it other than for those who hate guns and don't want anyone to be able to own them.
3
Or people whose small children were massacred in their classroom, some destroyed to the point of being unrecognizable. What’s more important; children or guns?
2
Guns are far more important than children.
I don’t recall seeing marketing or ads for guns, or this type of gun in particular. I don’t see gun ads on tv, radio, facebook, or the local paper. To my mind, the glorification of guns and violence comes from the way the things are depicted on tv programs, movies, video games. That is not directly the fault of the manufacturer, unless you can show the gun manufacturer paid for “product placement” in a film, similar to a can of soda or a beer bottle.
The solution is to ban all guns, period. In most of these publicized mass murders and the quotidian murder-suicides of husbands who slaughter their wife and children, the person who purchased the gun did it entirely legally, and the purchaser did not have a criminal record and was never identified as a person with severe mental issues. I assume the mother who purchased the gun for young Mr Lanza did it within the law. “Sensible gun control” laws are a joke — a complete ban is the only solution that makes sense.
5
Remington and other firearms manufactures cannot be sued unless a defect in product can be proved. This is because of a federal pre-emption law. All judges that said that the manufacturers could be sued are in violation of federal law and should be impeached for political activisim in ignoring this law. Activism is against the oath they took and they should be removed for knowingly violating their oaths .
2
Gun owners', manufacturers', NRA and politicians' refusal to act reasonably is going to turn their fear that "they are coming for your guns" into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Many have pointed out:
1) the best gun for hunting is a bolt action rifle or shotgun
2) the best gun for home defense is a shotgun
3) the best gun for personal defense is a small pistol
Gun owners know that there's no situation for which semiautomatic AR/AK-style rifles are the right choice.
Get rid of them.
358
@BL
"Gun owners know that there's no situation for which semiautomatic AR/AK-style rifles are the right choice. "
I live next door to a former Gun Grabber
He voted for McGovern in 72 and never looked back.
He knows me & my neighbor on the other side of me are "pro gun"
For years he never failed to mention a need for gun control to me...
Then about 2 years ago He had a bit of a scare at his front door.
It took the Cops 24 minutes to get there.
Next day he comes over and wants to talk "Home Protection"
He wants to get a 12 gauge and asks me if 00 Buck is a good home defense round
Put a wet blanket on the guy who is in his 60's and he weighs a buck 10... His wife is likely in the same range.
We go to the range
I bring Handguns and a 12 ga and a .223 rifle
Next day he bought a .223
Why?
He nor the wife could handle the shotgun
Neither liked the handguns (9mm semi and a .357 shooting light 38 loads)
They both could operate the .223
He's now a gun owner
He would disagree with you as to "what gun owners know"
What you don't know is guns
What we know is that you'll promote any fallacy that allows you and your Gun Grabbing friends to subvert the Bill of Rights!
9
@BL
Get rid of pistols, too. The only thing a handgun is designed to do is kill people. If you need to pack concealed heat, you need to reconsider the sorts of places you frequent.
Repeal the Second Amendment. Let folks who get their jollies shooting handguns and assault rifles do so at shooting ranges where they leave them locked up when they depart. When they return home, they can have shotguns and bolt-action rifles to either hunt game or protect their families.
It is absolutely possible to support repeal of the Second Amendment while still not opposing guns. What we have now is madness. There's no excuse.
23
@August West
Sounds good to me, will this plan get every illegal weapon off the street? I highly doubt it but it sounds good on paper.
2
Next stop SCOTUS
Where it likely loses 7-2
This was a State Court essentially making up a reason as to why they could overturn a valid Federal Law
1
Hmmm...once again with the blame of an inanimate object and now who manufactures them. Cars weren’t made to kill people, but yet they kill more innocent people than guns. We don’t blame cars why? Because the human is responsible for their deadly operation. That makes sense the other does not.
putting aside the fact that cars have a main purpose which is not killing (a significant difference when compared to guns), if you want to equate guns with cars, then you should do it in all aspects, and not just in the ones which are convenient to your (disingenuous) argument: cars must be registered before they can be operated, and everybody operating them must be licensed and insured.
when guns are subjected to similar regulations, perhaps then you can make a somewhat legitimate gun analogy to cars. until then, you can’t.
6
Hollywood and the entertainment industry, as much as any advertising agency, must equally share responsibility for promoting violence. Quentin Tarantino are you listening?
5
The bookies are likely giving 1000 to 1 odds that this will be overturned. The odds are about the same as suing oil companies for climate change. All these arguments are known to Congress, and yet no action. It's one thing to jail a Mafia murderer on the pretext of racketeering (the law uses racketeering because they don't have the goods on him for murder), another to use the laws of commerce to create an opening in the culture war. And this is what this is about. Everyone knows perfectly well what these guns are, but they are currently within the bounds of the Second Amendment, which may be narrowed to allow only single-shot rifles in one era, and rife-mounted SUVs in another. When assault rifles lose elections, they will be banned. Conservatives have long seen the First Amendment against religion as a cudgel against them, and return the favor with the Second, which is why the bar in this case is so high. Like the First, the strength of the Second lies in its simplicity. In both, it's pretty much two doors slammed shut.
17
@shreir What are you talking about, "the First Amendment against religion"? The First Amendment is against government intruding into religious beliefs, not the other way around. And no conservative uses the Second Amendment as a cudgel. Like the First, it limits government, not the people.
7
@shreir, simple? Please explain the first part of the Second Amendment about a "well regulated militia's being necessary" to the defense of a free state leads to the rest of the sentence. And why people so in love with the last half of a sentence refuse to discuss or consider the first half. I say this as a gun owner, but admit it's very odd that half an Amendment is so thoroughly ignored.
23
He’s got a wacky notion, based on the actual history of right-wing behavior, that some are completely intolerant of any church they don’t attend, and have developed an ugly, ugly habit of taping their particular version of Jesus to racism, greed, hatred and violence.
And as for the goofy claim about the Second Amendment, this just in from the actual America: with all rights come responsibilities, and these apply to all as well as to government. One would have thought you’d get that from the word, “militia,” which by def refers to a trained group organized for the purpose of the defense of all, not a chosen few.
Guess not. But it’s a social contract, dude, not a gun license.
Oh, well. One shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, some folks have got it into their heads that the Gadsden Flag is a symbol of “I do what I want,” rather than what it is.
7
I think the tragedy is they have to work so hard and find this roundabout way to hold these gun manufacturers responsible for that heart-breaking carnage. Our government PROTECTS them under federal law. Isn't that obscene? If these gun manufacturers wanted to do business responsibly they would agree with most gun safety demands such as background checks, registration, insurance requirements, training requirements, storage requirements, etc. Manufacture and market the product in a way that protects consumers. You will still make your money.
15
The damage an AR15 inflicts is unlike any other long gun. It has no application in hunting - it is a weapon of war. Selling the AR15 to consumers was dangerous and irresponsible and if you ask me it should be outlawed at the state level and if not outlawed our state lawmakers should be personally held responsible for neglect
19
@Deirdre The standard round that the AR15 is chambered for (.223/5.56mm) is actually an intermediate caliber, much less powerful than popular hunting rounds like the .308 or 30.06 calibers. As well, the .223/5.56mm round is an excellent varmint round for prairie dogs, coyotes, and other small to medium game.
1
@Steve it’s not the caliber of the round that’s important, it’s the ruthless efficiency of the delivery system. I was in the military and believe me, you cannot imagine how much damage an M16 (the military equivalent of the AR15) can do to an ammo can. Imagine when that’s a human being.
9
@Robert Larson I own an AR15 and have shot it at many different types of targets, so I can imagine what .223/5.56mm rounds from an AR can do. It still can't match the destructive power of rounds from a .308 rifle, which is one of the more popular calibers for deer.
1
Some activities in life require licenses, driving, piloting an airplane, practicing medicine, and more. Even owning a gun requires a license in most places. But along with the initial license, should there not be renewals, and as with some licenses, retests of various abilities and updated knowledge? Some places have mandatory inspections of the place where a gun is supposed to be kept for safety. With the elderly, sometimes a road test, eye test, cognitive abilities, etc., all have to be checked. And these tests are done so innocuous activities like driving don't lead to unintended tragedy. Why shouldn't gun ownership have the same types of requirements?
12
Sure. That’s the problem with the AR-15 used in the Sandy Hook massacre. The marketing of the weapon made it dangerous. Please. While I understand the anger about gun manufacturers having immunity from being sued for manufacturing these weapons, to permit this marketing suit to go forward is a distortion and twisting of the law to reach a desired result, instead of dealing with the immunity law itself. It makes a mockery of our judicial system.
2
As a former NRA gun-owning member, I say, Hallelujah!
When the industry peddling these arms that spends tens of $millions undoing and stonewalling background checks, waiting periods, even minimal licensing, and particularly mandated training for our own national weapons of mass destruction is held accountable, that'll be a great day for all of us.
Through grief, guts, heart and persistence, this group of family members of people killed in just one of these horrific events has prevailed. I hope that the next stage of our judicial system will bring them victory. Thank you!
19
What kind of democracy permits its legislative bodies to protect a manufacturer from culpability when their product kills someone? It's one thing to have product liability insurance, but asking the government to protect large corporations for the unlawful use of its product!
"In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which restricts lawsuits against gun sellers and makers by granting industrywide immunity from blame when one of their products is used in a crime. Lawmakers behind the measure cited a need to foil what they described as predatory and politically driven litigation"
This is unconscionable.
20
@Helen Plaisance the PLCAA was passed because some politicians went on record as using lawsuits to "create law with litigation".
If politicians were attempting to attack any other industry using an enumerated right, by creating law with litigation, I'd be for Congress passing a law protecting that industry as well.
2
Oh good. Excellent precedence. That means that any corporation is now liable for their sold products. One wonders where to begin? There are so many companies out there to go after for their negligence. Maybe it is a good time to be a certain type of lawyer.
4
EXACTLY!!, there are a lot of products which are available on the market without an acceptable amount of prior vetting. Opioids, makeup with toxic ingredients- are you aware that a very high percentage of ingredients in cosmetics are outlawed in Europe? Pesticides. Vaping, Tobacco - this is endless. J&J talcum powder.
In America, in the relentless drive for ever increasingly growing profits, we consumers have become the test subject guinea pigs!
Our only recourse has been the courts and even this has been continually chipped away at by legislation over the last 20 years by the Republicans and corporate democrats.The gun laws shielding the gun manufacturers is just one extreme instance of such a law. Even Wells Fargo can not be sued over opening fraudulent accounts because customers signed arbitration agreements when they started business with Wells Fargo for other services. (if you want to biz with them you have no choice). These arbitration agreements say they could not file class action suits. BTW: you, yourself, have signed arbitration agreements with most of the companies software you use - Facebook, Microsoft, Google and any random app you use on your phone.
Corporations have far too much power and we consumers have ever shrinking ability to send the pendulum back towards customer caring.
The attitude of corporations is let them eat cake. Ever hear about the blizzards of prescriptions??
1
Just another attempt by enemies of what fundamentally makes USA great to dismantle the Constitution in order to make USA more like the countries they either fled in terror from or abandoned to seek a better, American, life.
3
@Anthill Atoms
Many would argue that the 2nd Amendment has been willfully misinterpreted for a very long time.
15
I didn’t realize the ability to murder large numbers of people with automatic weapons was what made America great.
3
@Anthill Atoms
Sadly, there’s nothing ‘Great’ about gun violence.
2
Waiting for the pro-gun advocates to come out with faux-rational arguments against any attempt to regulate gun industry. These people will go to any lengths to make sure no legislation is ever passed. Not even the deaths of innocent little children will change their minds. This is what fear and propaganda does to the population.
14
Seems bizarre that there's no bipartisan agreement on killing machines when there *is* on something e-cigarette regulation. A country that actually believes in science, the UK, is way out in front of the US in deeming vapes effective smoking cessation tools with the possibility of saving many lives. Oh, but what about the children?! Apparently it's more acceptable for them to gun each other down than possibly see a flavored e-liquid in a tobacco shop.
6
The responsibility also lies with the advertising agencies and their staff for not doing the right thing. Lawsuits should extend to them.
2
If the GOP was still controlling Congress, there would be an immediate introduction and rapid passage of a bill to protect all gun manufacturers marketing claims.
There will be one waiting should the GOP retake Congress in 2020. Voting matters.
7
Shielding gun manufacturers from prosecution when their products are used to kill innocent people is wrong. When an automobile or an airplane kills innocents, and it is clear that the car has a level off fault, the manufacturer of that product is held responsible. The same should be so with gun manufacturers.
13
The Sandy Hook parents are the heroes of our day. They will never get their children back but they're tirelessly fighting for many years to make sure this tragedy doesn't happen to other families by getting rifles and automatic weapons off the market. Money is the only language gun manufacturers speak and I hope an eventual lawsuit holding them accountable for the Sandy Hook murders forces them to rein in the automatics. Kudos to the lawyer too. They are trying to make real what Congress should have done a decade ago.
32
Free markets must have a consequence, good or bad, yet we have congress intentionally removing such. Then the GOP whinges about socialism, well that's exactly what the congress did in 2005: government overreach to protect an industry from the market, and therefore remedies. Thankfully there was a narrow opening to allow this suit to proceed.
17
Lately i checked polls for demographics under 35, all attraction was set on being 'famous and rich'.
James Holmes a 25 year old white male, author of the Aurora mass shooting july 19 2012, said during trial : ''I didn’t think i could make a mark on the world with science, but i could become famous by blowing up people''.
When becoming famous 'blowing up people' is more attractive then becoming a well balanced person, a top notch carpenter, an inspiring teacher or a damn good jazz pianist, obviously the society that nurtured those minds and the socio cultural conditioning that was set, are profoundly flawed. I won't write the words 'gun culture', the letters NRA or Trump name. It has nothing at all to do with 'it'.
This legal combat will be a very long process. Expect other pre-planned bankruptcy filings from the defendants.
One last thing. Words have meanings. Is this the latest NRA's Freudian slip? 'Eviscerate the gun companies’. I don't think so. Unbearable arrogance.
12
I am STILL waiting for someone to "...Provide an authentic quote from one of the Founding Fathers, their contemporaries, or a 19th century Supreme Court decision, indicating that the Second Amendment was meant to apply solely to a well-regulated militia."
1
Isn’t that what the language of the amendment actually specifies in the dependent clause with which it begins?
13
It's clearly written that way. No mystery.
1
The comparison to cars is exactly on point. Guns should be licensed, insured and registered in an online file instantly accessible to the police. Operators should be licensed as well with a picture ID and would lose their operating rights for drunkenness and other misconduct
18
The only people "needing" (and I use that word loosely) the power to use high-capacity/rapid fire arms are soldiers in combat, full-stop. What we want in gun control is people not to have high-capacity firearms and also for the firearms to fall into the hands of depraved and troubled individuals across the US.
In fact, I suspect that a good number of the militant 2nd amendment AR-15 users are involved in right-wing paramilitary organizations and hide behind the 2nd amendment rights argument. We already had fare warning from the FBI that right-wing white supremacists were infiltrating law enforcement and the military.
15
Gun manufacturers like Remington realized long ago that because guns had to be engineered to withstand powerful internal explosions, they were the most durable of durable goods, and usually to outlived their original owners. Hence they couldn't be built to wear out or break like other consumer goods.
And what's worse, the market segment of people who actually needed guns to protect livestock from varmints, deter marauders from isolated homes, or put food on the table was small, shrinking and adequately armed already.
What choice did the gun sellers have but to pitch their products to malcontents, insecure child-men and political paranoids, all the while using their ads and literature to cultivate these mindsets more widely? It just made good business sense.
30
Cue the arguments that car manufacturers should be held responsible when someone is killed by a car.....
Yeah - lets have that argument.
Auto manufacturers aren't shielded from lawsuits. They are held responsible for defects and false advertising.
Auto manufacturers have highly regulated safety regulations
Autos aren't designed to kill people
Autos aren't marketed as killing machines
Autos are rarely used as killing machines in the US
Auto dealers can't sell you a car unless you have a license and insurance.
Auto drivers carry liability insurance should they kill someone.
Autos aren't given to 6 year olds as Christmas gifts, they aren't even marketed to children the way guns are.
Heck, on that note, when was the last time a toddler found his parents car keys, went into a car, started it, and then killed themselves or another child?
Cars are very different than guns. Don't let the pro-gun death people convince you otherwise.
My guess is if you started seeing people dying trying to get their truck to cross a river, or in other stunts as is seen in truck or car ads, you'd get the same lawsuits against auto manufacturers. And rightfully so.
525
@SXM autos aren't part of our Constitution, they're a privilege. The firearm wasn't "defective"... .
You don't like our Constitution? Change it. There is a way. Read it.
20
@PanchoVilla How is the Second Amendment infringed by this ruling?
32
@PanchoVilla The Constitution provides for voting. There are controls on voting.
If a gun design frequently exploded on being fired, wouldn't there be a liability for faulty manufacture? So things like better safeties are just matters of degree, not new restrictions.
19
The NRA probably needs to start reconsidering some of its positions, to align more with changing attitudes. I believe that a solid majority of citizens doubt that anyone should be able to buy weapons like the AR-15 and high capacity magazines.
17
@Thomas
What is an AR-15? Please explain it to me.
@Thomas
They've been available since the 1960's. You might ask yourself why they're a problem know. People have changed....not the guns
Shouldn't those that promote and benefit from the gun violence be held to as much or more blame than the gun manufacturers? The gun manufacturers don't depict their products being used for illicit purposes. However the film industry does, aren't they actually more responsible for the promotion of gun violence than the makers of firearms or the NRA? I have never seen an ad from either of these groups that promotes illicit activity. but there is plenty of "how to" from Hollywood. Perhaps we should place the blame somewhere else since that group lobbies and promotes violence more than any other group.
4
@DAVID K. They may glorify them in their free speech rights, but they don't sell the weapons or profit from their use or misuse.
3
I have to admit, when reading the beginning of your comment, I expected you to lay blame at the feet of the NRA, not the Hollywood media. The NRA spends so much of their energy encouraging all of us to become armed (supposedly) for our own self interest. Hard to believe one would find them less culpable than any other entity.
To include rappers? Video game producers? The US government being the largest exporter of firearms?
The carnage guns have been causing all across America, has directly been proportional to the number of guns in circulation. Assault weapons, like the ones used at Sandy Hook massacre & in Las Vegas, add to the intensity, arousing our passion against them. Without that passion no moves towards gun-control could happen.
Some 30 yrs. ago, I read a Letter to the Editor of TIME or Newsweek, predicting the demise gun-manufacturing for general circulation, from lawsuits against the manufacturers.
We have already seen one bankruptcy, because the projected sales of guns didn't materialize, while the fame of the misinterpreted 2nd Amendment running at its peak!
We malign NRA, which is actually misplaced. NRA leaders, now the most effective Wayne Lapierre, have been essentially prostituting for the gun manufacturers, not unlike many respected physicians do for drug-companies. True, Lapierre is an exceptionally charismatic star who could win over his audience he wants to influence.
When all said & done, the fight for & against gun-control is an exercise in vain like, if I could use an extreme example of WWI.
The case is utterly frivolous. Even if there were such a thing as "wrongful marketing" of a perfectly legal product, the perp here didn't purchase or own the gun.
The lawyer who brought this case should be sanctioned.
2
@Brenda - It's a lawsuit. The jury and/or judge will decide if it has merit.
8
@Brenda Indeed as all marketing pushes sex, power, riches, fun and youth. But as mentioned, the jury will have to decide, but if found guilty, marketing will cease to exist.
2
why we need trump out and put a stop to filling court with incompetent syncophants
2
@pamela "incompetent syncophants" -- so funny! Judging competency is fraught with peril.
NRA lobbyists and gun lovers never will try to understand the griefs and pain of the family members who lost their loved ones until they loose one of their own. Hope it doesn’t happen to them ya anyone else’s life at gun points. US needs sensible gun controls so that the criminals,terrorists ya irresponsible citizens can’t have easy enough to buy guns from gun shows ya internet outlets.
6
@Phytoist Perhaps, but that's not the issue here. They are planning to criminalize marketing that entices, marketing probably very few have ever seen (like I've never once seen a gun ad anywhere but a gun magazine, which suggests the magazine is more responsible than the advertiser). And of course SCOTUS for saying we have an individual right is clearly a promotion of guns, telling to exercise our rights that lead to such outcomes (the logic of the lawsuit is so flawed the best marketers can't make this stuff up)
YES!!!
7
If you are worried about your "man card" perhaps a gay bar would be a better choice to explore the source of your insecurity.
9
Yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!!!!!!!!
About time!!!
5
There was negligent entrustment involved in the Sandy Hook school shooting, but it was negligence by the mother, Nancy Lanza, who made the weapon available to her troubled son. On that basis the families of 16 Sandy Hook victims settled lawsuits against the estate of Nancy Lanza for $1.5 million from a homeowner's insurance policy that Lanza had on the home she shared with her son, Adam Lanza. See:
https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-sandy-hook-lawsuit-settled-20150803-story.html
Now plaintiffs want to collect damages from the manufacturer based on advertising directed at young men. But the actual purchaser of the weapon was a middle aged woman!
5
@Charles Chotkowski And they have zero evidence such advertising was seen, that it affected any decisions, etc. What next, suing all food ads for obesity, pharma ads for overdosing/side-effects, and any ad that shows the lifestyles of the rich for encouraging theft.
2
NRA says court ruling stands to eviscerate weapon manufactures.
Kind of the same way a 223 round eviscerates a 1st graders
abdominal cavity!
13
For the same reason we don’t allow civilians to buy war weapons like dynamite, rocket launchers, fully automatic machine guns, hand grenades and Stinger Missiles; we should not allow them to buy any rifles other than lever action, pump or bolt action; and no magazines larger than six rounds.
32
@Jerry Sturdivant Actually, civilians ARE allowed to buy full auto/select fire weapons manufactured and registered with ATF before May 19, 1986, as well as destructive devices. A tax stamp is required for purchase, which takes months, hundreds of dollars beyond the actual purchase price, and a comprehensive background check performed by ATF.
That sounds well regulated. What a concept.
3
@Jerry Sturdivant I agree. Guns that utilize gas from a fired bullet to load the next bullet should not be allowed in the hands of any civilian. Pump, bolt and lever action guns are all you need.
1
Laws that give gun manufacturers and the purveyors of these weapons immunity from accountability of the harm these weapons inflict daily on the citizens of the U.S. is the real problem. Gun violence is a major public health concern, and laws that let the gun industry avoid any liability for their actions which are clearly harmful need to be changed.
The NRA which routinely threatens Congressmen who are held to a single issue to support gun violence, needs to be throughly investigated in this, including whether they accepted illegal foreign contributions in the last election.
16
@loveman0 Next let's go for ads by politicians who make false promises and then watch the deficits soar and the guns you think illegal are not. You blame everyone except SCOTUS and Congress or the States.
"the law needs to be applied dispassionately” - says the lawyer for an industry that sold battlefield weapons to individuals by appealing to their greatest and most base passions.
14
Is there any evidence that Adam Lanza saw or paid any attention to the Remington company's advertising? How often does a person continue looking at advertising for a product once it is in his, or her, possession? Did he even know the brand name of his mother's rifle?
These lawyers are like the legal team (liberal activist) for Blasey-Ford, latching onto anything that will incite an emotional response and reaction, whether logic is involved, or not.
4
It’s little things that suggest...like his mom’s being a gun nut and survivalist.
Then there’s this:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/03/us/how-mass-shooters-got-their-guns.html
I din’t see any similarities, do you?
1
@robert Oh the irony of a “survivalist” mom being killed by her own gun and her own child, huh?
The ruling feels like a true first step towards gun control and changing the country's gun-centric culture. There is no need to advertise guns as a need because there simply is no need. Guns have not proven themselves to be life-savers like a bullet-proof vest. They should not be marketed as life enhancing any more than cigarettes. These parents are collateral damange for our country's leaders flippant attitude towards protecting life.
14
@DiaPat Really, not the thousands of gun laws on the books today?
The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.
OK now it's 2019 and not 1791.
Time to put an immediate stop to the insanity of guns in the US. Get this 1791 amendment UP TO DATE to reflect the insane fire power the average person has.
Get the NRA out of Washington. Hold any politician responsible who supports the NRA insane policies.
32
@Mike And you plan to disarm America? We had a civil war over part of the country enslaving other human beings. Will illegal guns be as secure as illegal drugs, illegal immigrants....
Provide an AUTHENTIC quote from:
* One of the Founding Fathers,
* Their contemporaries, or
* A 19th century Supreme Court decision, indicating that:
The Second Amendment was meant to apply solely to a well-regulated militia.
Don't forget your attribution. I want facts, not talking point from people who lack experience with firearms or have a lack of knowledge of the U.S. Constitution.
7
@Owhata Jerkiam Many states have similar language, without the poor syntax, suggesting that states do regulate weapons and the militias are citizens.
1
@Owhata Jerkiam: Provide a similar authentic quote that it was not.
@Owhata Jerkiam The founding fathers also believed that animals couldn't go extinct. Maybe we should take their beliefs with a grain of slat (or three).
But can now Honda or say Ford be sued if their vehicles are used to murder?
What about that guy who used a pickup truck to kill bicyclists in bike path in NYC a couple of years ago? Can whichever party who made the truck be sue?
7
@Yaj I see a difference and that is the original purpose of a gun vs car. One was made to lill.
16
@karen green
So -- you want my elderly father-in-law to be a siting duck in his apartment if someone breaks in...or do you want him to take his police-issue .38 and stop the intruder?
1
@karen green Guns are made for murder. Humans do that with whatever tools they have handy: fists, rope, poison, fire, vehicles, high ledges, water, plastic bags, knives, guns, bombs.... Humans are just ingenious when it comes to killing others and thinking more tyranny will solve it all.
"Manliness" is interpreted by immature people to mean shooting people in cold blood? Even though a lot of people think that guns unlock homicidal tendencies, do they all associate "manliness" with violent behavior? Are we now going to seek to end all behaviors which males tend to follow in order to prevent violent acts against people?
2
@Casual Observer Killing children is as far from manly as you can be. Killing unarmed adults is next in line of cowardice. This ruling just lets a lawsuit proceed; it cannot succeed as it's absurd at so many levels, including free speech, SCOTUS rulings for guns, and the fact that murder is already fully illegal and none recommend murder outside of Hollywood and the US Military Industrial Complex and "national interests" bull.
2
Here's a list of all the adverse effects of banning the semi automatic Bushmaster style guns in Australia in 1996":
Dreadful, aren't they?
27
Unless you are part of a 'well regulated militia' you should not allowed to own a gun. It's right there in the part of the Second Amendment that is currently ignored. Time to consider the entire amendment.
10
@AMM Sadly, "ignored" by SCOTUS and Congress since the nation was founded. Go figure you have a better handle on interpreting constitutional rights.
Most states allow for guns, which means they are part of a well regulated state militia.
require gun owners to carry liability insurance
32
@true patriot
I do -- it's called a home-owner's policy.
BTW -- do you need insurance for your rights? How about the Congress makes a law that requires you to have insurance before you speak in public?
After all, your words could start a riot.
I think we need to REGISTER all public speaker because of their "rapid fire" comments could "assault" people and create a violent response!
@true patriot
Insurance doesn't cover illegal acts.....
1
This is a terrible ruling. The Congress granted gun manufacturers immunity. Even regardless of that, the guns didn’t malfunction, but were misused by a nut. Can I now sue Ford if someone intentionally rams one into me? Absurd.
6
@DRS I think the difference is that vehicles were intended for safe transportation with “accidents” being called accidents for a reason. Guns were intended for killing and, in this instance along with many others, they did a pretty good job. Besides, pharmaceutical companies are being sued for opiate addiction and deaths. Is that the analogy you wanted?
4
@Quinton They were meant to hunt and to defend, not commit murder. If a government-licensed practitioner had prescribed a gun, that would be the similar.
@drs
No but the driver of the Ford has liability insurance to cover basically anything. So should gun owners.
3
Don't get excited. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, et al will reverse this.
4
@Cody McCall
Which I'm thankful for...this is utter nonsense.
How can we all donate money to help the Sandy Hook families fund their legal expenses in this case?
14
The NRA & other right wing zealots say you have a right to own a gun. But you have NO RIGHT to kill human beings.
The NRA & all gun manufacturers are accomplices to every act of violence committed with a gun, period. If someone still yearns for killing & combat experience, join the armed forces in Irakistan.
Kudos to the lawyers for finding the right argument against the byzantine excuses of the Gun-Industrial-Complex.
It reminds me of the scene in "The Merchant of Venice" & Portia's final argument: Shylock could have the "pound of flesh" but if he extracted but 1/10th of an ounce more, it would be condemned as a crime.
3
@nicole H: Actually, the argument Portia made was that Shylock was entitled to his pound of flesh, but he was not legally entitled to one drop of blood from Antonio. And since you can't extract flesh from a person without that person bleeding, that made Shylock's claim null and void.
This is the best news in the past two years in the horrible Trump news cycle.
15
Seriously!! This is preposterous! They are going to open up every manufacturer of toys to kitchen appliances to automobiles. Corvette, Porsche, Ferrari all advertise how fast their vehicle can go from 0-60. So now every time some guy goes over the speed limit driving one if these cars and kills somebody, the family’s will be able to sue the auto manufacturer. Or the knife company advertises how sharp their knife stays, or the smartphone manufacturer advertises how bright their screen I do that you can even see it in the daylight and somebody walks into traffic and gets killed while looking at it. A lawyer’s hey day. God help us if these judges don’t start getting braver and tell these people to get out and shut up.
3
Ive been waiting to hear this news for a long time! justice is served.
6
Big yawn. The Supreme Court will reverse, as the politically motivated ruling by Democrat Party appointed governors clearly flies in the face of the federal statute.
2
If the Sandy Hook parents are successful in their lawsuit it will be a small step in the right direction. Which isn't to say that I believe the AR-15 or any other gun should be made illegal to own. It's a right step in identifying the pathological relationship of our nations's young men to guns as the problem. I'd wager that most shootings, whether mass shootings, domestic, in furtherance of a crime, or otherwise, are perpetrated by young men who have not been inculcated in the awesome privilege and responsibility that handling a gun entails. They have instead swallowed the lie that violence makes the man. I think gun responsibility should be taught in our schools instead of leaving it to the 5%(?) who obtain their introduction to weapons in the military. I think Hollywood should pay a fee for every time a gun is fired on the big screen. Then we take that money and invest it in gun education and reality. I think that the solution to the problem of gun violence starts with showing young Americans that they can be trusted if they act responsibly.
2
I suppose this ruling would allow the suing of all auto manufacturers since many of the advertisements for auto show the cars being used in an unsafe manner, speeding, drifting, jumping over things.
The program Forged in Fire could be held responsible for any killing, stabbing etc with knives or swords since they show knives and swords cutting into sides of beef or silicon torsos.
Where does all this lead to?
3
I'm hopeful that this is just the first step toward actually addressing the problem this country has with gun violence. While this is a new approach in the legal sense, it is not a new problem.
I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but our biggest problem with violence is that it is synonymous with masculinity. And I really don't believe it was always that way. My dad was a life-long member of the NRA, a hunter and gun collector. He could fix anything you set down in front of him, read extensively and had a huge private library. He worked hard, played hard and loved deeply. He was a man's man and I never saw him become violent in all the years I knew him.
We need to teach our young men and women what being a man means. The gun doesn't make the man.
12
This does beg the question as to why, out of all the industries in the US, do gun makers have immunity from law suits to begin with. Their product causes over 30,000 deaths a year and yet they are shielded from being held accountable for them. Let the gun makers argue their side to the courts and have the jury decide if they should be responsible just like every other manufacturer. Maybe the jury will agree that it is the individual and not the manufacturer who should be held liable for mass killings. Maybe they won't. But that is what the judiciary system is for. Perhaps this decision will allow that to happen.
10
@Bill
37,461 died in car crashes, we gonna sue the auto manufacturers? why not, cars are supposed to be fun and useful, not death machines, at least guns are designed to kill, nobody ever said they make a good fashion accessory or immersion blender
3
@Doug
Let's treat guns like we do autos - require owners to pass tests and have a licence, register the guns and require owners to maintain insurance. Good idea!
16
@Bill
The immunity was intended to protect them from frivolous lawsuits, which this is. It does not protect them from liability for defective products so your statement is disingenuous.
2
Remington will go to federal court where this action in state court will be ruled to violate federal law.
3
Since Lanza did not purchase the gun the advertising that was used by Remington before the gun was purchased is irrelevant. Therefore and Federal Court that considers the case will find that the case can not go forward regardless of whether they agree with CN's reasoning (which they won't anyway).
4
@Bill
That's not true. It can be introduced during discovery that he researched the weapons and asked either or both parents to buy those guns. The mom was a gun nut, but that doesn't preclude evidence another family member was a gun nut, as well. In this case, the mentally defective son.
Are you suggesting the none of the relatives of the males who commit mass shootings, and 99% are male, can own guns or that exonerates the son/brother/husband/uncle/grandfather?
It might be tough describing a self-defense “tool’s” marketing as somehow suggesting to consumers that the tool’s true design/purpose is offensive operations.
I mean, the gun industry’s marketing would have to be full of warfare imagery and appeals to aggression. So unless it looks like gun industry’s commercial angle is, “buy this thing and you can you can be kinda like a soldier at war,” they’ve got NOTHING to worry about.
2
This is a step forward, toward sanity, justice, and humanity.
18
Justice will come when gun sellers, and re-sellers, are held responsible to extensive background checks. When you lease an apartment, most owners receive more than financial information, and you get a good synopsis of whom you are trusting to pay, and reasonably maintain, your property. So, how much more so when selling ammo that kills. What about minimal age requirements? Maybe even require first aid and basic life saving courses, as gun accidents aren't unusual?
But, only the federal government can illegalize machine guns, etc. for routine sale. And yes, equating manhood with the lethality of a weapon is a highly manipulative means of advertising.
5
@Rosalie Lieberman Stay safe in the murder capital of the US. I'm sure very few of the killings in Chicago are committed with legally acquired guns.
Bill, I'm sure the gun was originally sold to a legal owner, who then failed to take suitable care of it, or sold it to an illegal buyer.
Making the legal owner responsible for the care of the firearm, and liable for criminal use of the firearm until it is destroyed or legally transferred to a new owner would eliminate much of the carnage inflicted by poorly controlled firearm ownership.
This is not a turning point. Nothing has been resolved. The weapons like an AR-15 are still available. And with 300 million guns in circulation, too many of every type. I am not against guns. There are just too many rapid killing military style guns out there.
8
@DENOTE MORDANT
Military weapons have been of every type used for non-military purposes. Every firearm has been used by the military. The semi-automatic hand and long guns in use regardless of appearance are equally lethal and shoot identically the same. The semi-automatic guns made for civilian use, including the AR-15, are the same as the guns that look like hunting rifles with wooden stocks an smaller magazine clips that shoot the same caliber, the same bottle necked bullets. The ballistics are the same, the effects, too. You are repeating a branding effort to picture all guns are weapons of war, not because they are but because weapons of war should not be used in peace.
3
You are splitting hairs buddy. Stick to the theme. Pistols, ok. Assault style rifles not ok.
3
@Casual Observer
You can kill someone with a phone book. Are we going to ban the Yellow Pages?
This is great news.
This is the turning point and things will change.
12
In response to Skylar: That indeed may be history, but as far as we are concerned the rights of gun owners do not trump (no pun intended) the rights of the safety of our citizens today! These suggestions do not mean folks cannot have guns - only that there needs to be safety controls in place and repercussions if they are broken. No different than automobiles. And the rights to RESPONSIBLE gun owners are not in jeopardy.
13
@Gillian There are safety controls in place and repercussions....except for when the govt doesn't do it's job like in parkland and Florida as a whole who didn't run background checks for an entire year. The problem is we aren't enforcing the laws on the books already. As far as safety, we're safer now than ever. FBI stats just released say that murder is down 50% and gun crime is down 70% in the past 20 years. That's out there on their website.
4
@Skylar - It seems though, that the gun crime has moved from the streets to schools and other areas of maximum kill rate success.
3
@Skylar With a mass shooting nearly every day of the year for the past year, I don't think those statistics matter. Yes, the gun laws currently in place need to be enforced but that is not enough. We have to stop the proliferation of guns and ammunition. No one needs a machine gun for self-defense or hunting.
6
"In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which restricts lawsuits against gun sellers and makers by granting industrywide immunity from blame when one of their products is used in a crime. Lawmakers behind the measure cited a need to foil what they described as predatory and politically driven litigation."
Let's be clear - gun manufacturers saw what happened to the tobacco industry and preemptively crafted this law to protect themselves.
Also worth noting: Bernie Sanders voted for this bill.
23
@Rebecca Bernie Sanders, who as a congressman voted for the law in 2005, defended the law in October 2015, saying: "If somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer and the murderer kills somebody with a gun, do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible? Not any more than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beats somebody over the head with a hammer."[28][29] He changed his position somewhat in January 2016, saying that he would favor a partial repeal of the law.[30]
3
@Scott D
Sanders conveniently changed his position in January 2016, during the campaign.
There, fixed it.
1
@Rebecca
Did you hear Bernie's explanation for why he voted for it?
2
Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant!
Keep Disinfecting America Until It's Great Again (KDAUIGA)
13
I hope the gun manufacturers are destroyed .
Children died in bloodshed and horror.
I live near Sandy Hook - you want to know what its like to hear a church bell chime, one for each person killed?
The sound rings in your soul forever.
40
I worked at a Cabelas for 3 days, until in their training I learned they were the #1 gun supplier within a 5 states radius. In KS.
My conscience caused me to quit. Loved camping, but killing? Not so much.
30
I use my guns solely for skeet and target shooting. I have never killed anything. What’s wrong with that?
3
@Dorothy
I asked a waitress at a restaurant what she would order for a steak. She said she had been a vegetarian since she found out where meat really came from. Did I order the veggie platter? No. A 20 ounce rib eye.
1
@DRS
Absolutely nothing, you probably have them stored securely as well.
The issue is the proliferation of handguns and semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines.
Neither of those have any non military or police use.
In addition requiring owners to carry liability insurance would help reduce firearm ownership to responsible people like yourself.
1
As a gun owner with a concealed carry permit, and training with regular practice, I see zero adequate cause to allow rifles designed perfectly for fast and devastating fire to be sold. If lawsuits are necessary to stop those sales, so be it. Gun owners desiring self and family defense have no reason for them. Hunters have no reason for them. Going boom at the gun range can be enjoyed by other means. And the toll in human lives when mass murderers get them is by no means acceptable. There's no fuzzy sanctity in guns or their owners that we should continue to supply killers with these. If you want guns legal, they need to be sane. And no grenades, either, please.
746
@jb You do realize that the AR15 is over 50 years old and can be fired only as fast as any other "hunting" rifle that takes .223/.556 ammo right? They are used for hunting, and women like me hunt with mine, Me and other women find them to be good self defense tools also compared to larger caliber so-called "hunting rifles". It's the person shooting the rifle not the rifle itself.
14
@Skylar JB is unlikely to actually be a gun owner given the tone of the post, but assuming he is, as a CC holder, he likely owns a semi-auto pistol, which is - as you and I know - what accounts for vast majority of gun deaths
15
@jb
Are you aware that semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic handguns both operate the same and shot bullets equally as quickly? They use the gas from the firing of a bullet to eject the shell casing and load another bullet from the magazine? The user must squeeze the trigger to discharge every bullet? Are you aware that the rifles reduce recoil and allow the shooter to regain the target more quickly than bolt and lever action rifles and even semi-auto rifles without the recoil damping? When you get right down to it, it's not that it's shaped like a military rifle that makes it popular, it's just a better shooting mechanism.
4
The insanity of the socialist progressive left is on display here for all to recoil from, in complete disgust.
The guns all belonged to the mother and were kept in a gun safe.
The kid stole them after killing his mother.
It is a cheap stunt to try to lay the responsibility for the actions of an insane adolescent on the firearms manufacturers.
And anyone who claims he was not insane, should just consider what would have happened had he lived: a defense, of diminished mental capacity.
That any judge would allow this lawsuit to progress - at all - raises enormous questions of judicial excess, and ethics.
12
@Objectivist Right. People should look at what's happening in Venezuela. They disarmed citizens in 2012. The country is in chaos with soldiers not even going into certain areas at night. And who has guns to defend themselves? Criminals. Because they didn't follow the law.
6
@Objectivist, so gun manufacturers are not responsible for their products that are perfect for mass killing when used for that purpose--but everyone on the progressive left is responsible for one court case brought by families of murdered children? It's that double-standard blame-casting faux argument which we can certainly count on from, well, your kind of person.
4
@Objectivist, one must be a member of the "socialist progressive left" to want reasonable gun controls, fewer dead children and gun manufacturers not shielded from liability? Bizarre. Count me in, I guess.
8
What are they after? A semi-automatic gun ban? A ban of guns with detachable magazines? If so, then try to get it passed. What is the point of this piece meal approach? Once the ar-15 is banned, and the next mass shooting comes from a pistol with a backpack full of 10 round magazines......then what? And when semi-automatic weapons are banned and the next mass shooting is an over/under break-action shotgun, then what? At Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza had a 10-15 minute window to kill those kids (and most shootings seem to have a similar time frame). How many people can be executed in 10 minutes with a shotgun?
What will the 2029 headline be? "Democrats Triumph Over Gun Violence....Mass Shootings in 2029 Only 91% as Deadly as in 2019"
5
@O
The goal of many gun control advocates who dominate the public conversation is to end any private ownership of firearms without very tough requirements and control of the weapons owned. It's as simple as that. They are controlling their debate by just using the lack of knowledge about guns amongst most people who are not interested in owning nor using guns, who amount to at least half of the people who are eligible to vote.
Anyone who knows about guns and has any appreciation of how many people own guns and do so considerately understands there is a big problem to address with dangerous people having them, but that semi-automatic weapons are not bought by the vast majority of people with the intention of making war on the rest of society. But that is the message being conveyed with regards to semi-automatic weapons by associating AR-15 rifles with M-16 rifles, with civilian versions of military weapons.
6
@O
The United States HAD that ban, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1994 - after the 1989 Stockton, CA school shooting where 37 were shot, five killed.
@Maggie Semi-automatic weapons have never been banned. The 1994 AWB looked at firearm components, then mixed and matched several of those components to define "assault weapon". 5 years into the Clinton-era ban and 13 were murdered at Columbine. That ban ended in 2004. The 111th Congress did not vote on another firearm bill, even when the Democrat party had a short-term 60 vote in the senate, not to mention the presidency (Obama) and the house.
The Viriginia Tech shooter could have purchased a rifle, but opted to use a handgun and killed 30+ people. So again, what will the headline be 10 years from now when the AK47 is long since banned and a shotgun mass-shooting has resulted in 10 or 15 murders?
"Triumph Over Gun Violence. Experts Estimate that 19-22 Would Have Died if Assault Weapon Was Used in Tuesday's Shooting"
Statements made by anyone associated with the firearms industry can of course be dismissed out of hand as both reprehensible and immoral.
15
@Rocky L. R.
Of course they can. If the only purpose of the product you sell is to kill, you are both reprehensible and immoral.
5
This makes no sense as you'll now have to go after the auto industry for all the drunk driving deaths? The tool industry for all the injuries and death caused by power tools? Pharmaceutical companies for all those drug related deaths? I guess we should sue the shoe manufacturers because I assume this nut was wearing shoes when he went on his killing spree?
2
@Barney Frank, in a drunk driving incident the bar or restaurant that served the alcohol could be held accountable. Many organizations, when hosting events that involve alcohol, choose to have the event catered by companies that have trained bartenders on staff for exactly this liability reason.
In this case they're arguing that the advertising promoted violence and that that could make them accountable for violence committed with their products. I have yet to see a shoe commercial go with the same messaging. Pharmaceutical companies are sued for harming their consumers all the time.
10
@Barney Frank...You do know that people who are arrested for drunk driving can loose their drivers license and hence their ability to drive a car?
4
@Barney Frank
Assault weapons are designed specifically to kill. When they kill someone, it is not an accident. It is doing what it was designed to do. Your comparison to objects which are designed for assisting people but accidently harm someone is ridiculous at best.
4
Good news. But its not all on the NRA. The liberals actually have their share of blood on their hands. Insanely lax rules and laws pertaining to mentally ill people have contributed to an awful lot of loose canons walking around free when they shouldnt be. An example?? here in NJ guardianship of a special needs/mentally ill person used to be a pretty easy deal, but its become a bureaucratic nightmare costing families as much as 5 grand to get guardianship over a loved one who seriously needs guidance, supports and possibly restraints in their life.Libs are fighting right now....sucessfully.... to close down disabled work shelters because they think they are unfair when the shelters offer the only solid work opportunities for people who suffer from cognitive issues.
2
@Tara
Who was in charge in the 80s when so many homes and hospitals were closed? When so many physically and cognitively impaired were tossed into the street?
And maybe I am not using the correct search words, but I can find nothing about those work shelters on Google.
2
Ronald Reagan and his ribald band of Republicans oversaw the closure of mental hospitals nationwide, and are as responsible for the mentally ill roaming the streets as they are for the sale of government to the NRA & other high bidders. The law protecting the gun industry is obscene. Let judges & juries decide who's responsible for gun violence.
1
After Alex Jones called the horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook a hoax, sanity returns. Perhaps gun manufacturers and the NRA will finally be held to account.
18
Encouraging people to buy a product to use it with reckless disregard, is evidence of reckless disregard for the effects which result in injury or death.
Whether just having marketed that product can be shown to conclusively have caused a person to commit any act is probably subject to the ability of an attorney to convince a jury, it could be possible to find a jury in some areas of the United States who simply oppose allowing anyone to own guns and would find this marketing campaign compelling evidence of complicity in any and all violent acts committed with their products.
Actually proving that a marketing campaign resulted in a particular violent act is not compelling even if it could be statistically proven to have affected the amount of such violence by increasing it. That would be a class action suit encompassing all victims to the calculated increased risks produced by the campaign.
I do not think that the families nor their attorneys would attempt such a scientifically sound case method. Instead, they will find a jurisdiction where gun ownership is very low and opposition to gun ownership is very high. Then with voir dire they should be able to find the jury that they need to prevail.
1
@Casual Observer
Yet isn't this the exact path taken to sue Big Tobacco?
@Ann
That is the exact path used by attorneys in civil cases when they can.
Assault weapons in civilian hands is a national disgrace fostered by cynical politicians and an out of control gun culture.
A hearing in 2003 for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act can be viewed here. There were 11 active shooter incidents in the U.S. that year.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?175911-1/gun-liability
It is worth watching. There appears to be much more comity on display between republicans and democrats during the hearing than we see today.
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act passed in 2005.
According to the FBI there were 9 active shooter incidents in the U.S. in 2005. There were 30 incidents in 2017.
https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-incidents-graphics
The republicans are finally being forced to pay attention to the mayhem caused by guns in our society.
They had to be forced to help protect our children.
And yes, they may even have their “man cards” revoked. But the application of force appears to be the only thing they understand or will respond to.
The scourge of guns and violence in this country will diminish.
And comity between democrats and republicans will likely have very little to do with it.
6
@Interested Party Your are wrong on so many accounts. If you go crazy and crash your car, should we hold you liable or take cars away from everybody? Law abiding citizens do not carry around these types of firearms. They are for fun and entertainment, much like your bowling ball.
@DES57
Odd logic.
Just keep in mind, in the voting booth, that republicans have to be forced to change. Pressure needs to be applied for them to protect their constituents.
And I don't own a bowling ball.
2
An AK15 is fun?
1
This final decision will likely be made by Justice Roberts.
In the meantime, NRA TV shouts "Fire in a Crowded Theater" daily with no accountability.
14
@Sissy Space X
"Fire!" REALLY?
Care to give an example?
1
@Owhata Jerkiam
from a retired attorney: First year law students are taught that the First Amendment "free speech" protection is not unlimited. The example given that captures SCOTUS decisions is "Yelling "
'FIRE!' in a crowded movie theatre" is NOT protected speech. It is speech that all citizens would agree is intended to cause havoc and likely kill and injure people.
1
Being an American I am not naive to believe people will lose the right to bear arms. But, at least now for the past year at least and its connection to the Russians the NRA is starting to squirm. They can be held accountable for so events in the 2016 election which was a wake up call to my fellow citizens about maybe our election was rigged just like they do in Third World dictatorships. To me an I have used weapons for on the job never private, the Constitution states in that classic connected to a militia since there was not a large army after the Revolution and secondly for hunting since the country was rural. But, it never meant for a citizen to have hundreds of weapons including automatic weapons like I used in the military. Hopefully even with a Conservative court there will be so light on that clause of the Constitution and what it meant. In another note I have grown sick of people like Jones who claim what happened at the school was fabricated. People like him should also be sued which he is, that is not free speech, but a man and group that listens to him that in the old days would have been committed with mental health issues. At least one of his followers did go to jail for calling and writing to one of the families with vile comments. I wonder what kind of a person does things like that. Jim Trautman
7
@trautman
there is not right to own guns. There is a right to have guns if you belong in a well organized militia despite what corrupt lawyers appointed for life in the Supreme Court may have said. It will change because it is wrong. Like slavery change because it was wrong.
5
This sets a horrible precedent. If someone hits my child with their automobile on purpose, suing the auto maker has zero benefit to me or my family except to give me more money. Everyone would know that it was for money if it was for a car. Why is this any different? The firearm maker did not sell the firearm with the intent of it being used to shoot innocent children. The shooter is responsible.
4
@Daniel
have you seen adds encouraging people to run over your child with a car? No you have not.
Have we seen gun manufacturers encouraging guns to augment masculinity? Yes we have.
The gun manufactures are responsible for murder in my view. Gun manufactures also make sure nut-cases can buy guns.
I see a difference, you do not. One of us may be blind. I bet most people would agree with me there is a difference. In a democracy most people have it.
13
@Daniel Yes. And not only that, the kid stole the gun in this instance. Was his mom, the owner of the firearm, influenced by the masculine marketing messages. This ruling is ridiculous on so many levels. Such misguided responsibility.
@Daniel, I didn't know that automobiles were made for the purpose of hitting people. Why, they're two-ton assault weapons, instead? Big news, there. If they were, we'd mainly be dead by now, I think. Try another comparison if you have one.
6
RE: This statement regarding Alex Jones is 100% false. I challenge the authors to provide a verifiable, FULL-LENGTH, DIRECT QUOTE from Alex Jones where he claimed the following FAKE statement:
"Beyond the lawsuit against the gun companies, victims’ families have also had successes recently in lawsuits against Alex Jones, the far-right provocateur, who spread bogus claims about the shooting, including that the families were actors involved in a plot to confiscate firearms."
1
@Owhata Jerkiam n September 2014, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who runs the website InfoWars, which had previously claimed that the murders were a "false flag" attack perpetrated by the government, made a new conspiracy claim that "no one died" at Sandy Hook Elementary School because the Uniform Crime Reports showed no murders in Newtown for 2012, and that the victims were "child actors."[24][25] This claim is false and misrepresents the FBI report. In reality, because the Connecticut State Police was the lead investigator after the attack, the Sandy Hook victims were included in Connecticut's statewide records (under "State Police Misc.") rather than under the Newtown statistics.[25][26]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting_conspiracy_theories
And to find his direct quotes might be difficult as many of the social media platforms where he published were taken down.
1
@Amala Lane
Oh! So you have NO SOURCE, but you are claiming it's true.
All of his stories are available at info wars . com
By the way -- ANYONE can publish to wikipedia. The so-called "source" you are providing has no quote, no video, no nothing.
So...why are you claiming Jones said something wrong as if you KNOW, when in reality, you have nothing but your opinion.
@Owhata Jerkiam
WHAT? No one ever said that Jones SAID the quote you have above. But the parents have won lawsuitS.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/us/politics/alex-jones-sandy-hook.html
This argument also will have first amendment implications. It will affect how the media reports the news, how they phrase their articles. It will affect the advertising industry. Any product sold and used in a deadly incident will be subject to suit. It's possible to make a bomb from a bag of flour. The Pillsbury doughboy can be sued for a dust explosion. Gasoline producers can be sued for facilitating arson. CNN and the NYT can be sued for inciting riots.
Adam Lanza didn't buy the gun. It's advertising didn't result in him attaining the weapon. It didn't persuade him to make the purchase. His mother bought the weapon, for her use. It was her gun. She could be sued more successfully for her negligence in allowing Adam access, and encouraging his use and possession, of guns. She bears most of the responsibility, aside from that of the shooter, Adam, more than any other person or external influence. But she is dead. They can't sue a dead victim.
If the families want to hold accountable the influencers who pushed Adam to commit murder they need to look at the violent, combat, war themed video games he was addicted to and played for hours and hours at a time. They should sue the members of the community, teachers, neighbors, family members who knew, and disapproved, and were fearful of Nancy's teaching Adam about guns and allowing him access to guns. They failed to act when they knew it was a problem. Sue them first, but they don't have money.
4
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus I agree. I thought of the video game industry, hollywood and music industries that use violence in their marketing directed to children. I can just imagine the lawyers jumping all over this to sue.
Your arguments are absurd.
@Decency & Democracy
Why? Please explain.
Some logical rules for gun ownership:
1. There is no reason for any individual other than SWAT teams and the military to own assault weapons. They are illegal for hunting in any event and certainly not a choice for target shooting. There is only one reason for that type of gun and it is to kill people.
2. Require background checks at all levels – not just at stores but at gun shows, in gun show parking lots, private sales, etc.
3. Require licensing with safety training & testing required with mandatory liability insurance for each gun with yearly renewals - just like automobiles.
4. Require obligatory reporting of all gun sales including private sales with legal/criminal repercussions for failing to do so.
5. Maintain a national registration on all gun and ammo purchases with the ability to investigate unusual or large purchases, ie: algorithms can be written to scan the registry for large and/or unusual purchases or outlier issues for further investigation.
6. Require mandatory reporting of all stolen guns with penalties for failure to do so.
7. Confiscate weapons of all those convicted of domestic violence or felonies and not permitting licensing for them in the future.
8. There should be no gun available to ordinary citizens with more than a 6 to 10 shell clip and each shot should require a separate and individual pull of the trigger – not just one pull and the stream of bullets shoot automatically.
Please help by sending this to your politicians!
22
@Gillian Regardless of where you come in on the debate, our forefathers absolutely meant for citizens to have "weapons of war" or "military-style" weapons because they just came back home from fighting a war, not hunting, where the govt was trying to disarm them. If you look up Puckle gun and others like it, you'd see that machine guns actually existed during the civil war. Semi-automatic is 1 shot per pull of the trigger.
@Gillian
wrong on #1.If you did some research you would discover that there are many competitive events using these weapons.
#3, home owners carry liability insurance in case they are sued. This may fall under that.
#5, Competition shooters go through a whole lot of ammunition. I would go through 50,000 rounds in a year or so easily ( BTW that's 10 cases of 22 ammo).
And finally, I did own an AR15 but destroyed it after San Bernardino. That was my choice. I still train and practice precision rifle and pistol. Oh, in case you might have wondered, I'm not an NRA member.
@Rick Tornello
#3 - only if one drags people into their home to murder them.
#1 and #5. There are reasonable ways to accommodate those who choose shooting as a sport. We can look to other countries to see how they manage these issues.
We should stop using mild-sounding euphemisms like "gun lobby."
They're arms dealers, plain and simple.
13
@Victor I.
So, you want to vilify me for having the desire and ability to protect myself and my family with firearms?
Dialing 911 AFTER you have been attacked, shot or stabbed is a little TOO LATE don't you think.
Please explain to me WHY my knowledge and skills with governing the LEGAL use of firearms is a bad thing.
BTW -- I can, and have used everything from .22 to 50-caliber. No citizens are dead and my family and I are just fine, thank you.
1
I absolutely want to see the internal deliberations of a gun manufacturer after the brutal mass killing of children at an elementary school. The obviously don't want these documents made public for a reason. That should be enough justification to "dispassionately" demand the manufacturer turn them over. There's only one reason to suppress these documents: Guilt.
9
@Andy So is guilt your only motive for not wanting the public to listen to your conversation last night with your wife about her mother? Or is it really just about privacy? To be blunt, nobody else’s business!
I'd be interested in the internal marketing documents. When I saw the Bushmaster "Man Card" advertisement, it disturbed me about as much as those TV car sales ads that seem to encourage antisocial, dangerous behavior. Guns are weapons. Selling them as "men toys" has risks just as selling cars by showing people speeding through cities at dangerous rates.
The weakness of the negligent entrustment strategy applied to Adam Lanza is that the gun shop did not sell the gun to Adam Lanza. It sold it, absolutely legally, to Adam's mom, who Adam subsequently murdered to steal her rifle.
3
@Khal Spencer The argument seems to be that these are too dangerous to sell to the public, not based on an individual sale. I suspect the defense will be that there are millions out there and the number used in mass shootings is miniscule compared to the number owned safely and without harming the public. So where do we draw the line on what the public can be trusted to own? I imagine someone will pull out a risk analysis table.
I really don't know the answer (political opinions on ARs aside), and am curious as to how this suit will play out.
1
@Khal Spencer
It only took two accidents out of thousands of planes to ground the Boeing 737. And that's for a plane, which is painstakingly designed to be as safe as possible. While machine guns are painstakingly designed to kill as many people as possible.
2
@Samuel Russell The civilian Bushmaster is not a machine gun. Look it up. But it is darn close to the military version which is designed to control a battlefield. Perhaps there should be some additional standards for owning one since in a well regulated militia, the members are supposed to be trusted to shoot the enemy, not their neighbor's first graders. The fact that Adam Lanza had access to Mom's firearms after shooting Mom dead suggests a flaw in her security system.
Interesting choice of word by the NRA - the case would "eviscerate" their legal protections.
They should know, because "eviscerate" is pretty much what happens if you're shot with one of their products.
8
Okay, ban all military type weapons, and then ban all alcoholic beverages because drunken drivers cause many more deaths and injuries than the unstable people who go around shooting others! How about having the police check for people coming out of bars and parties who are inebriated, before they get into their cars to drive?
2
@epk
I did a quick search and for 2013 where I could find figures for gun deaths and drunk driving deaths. In 2013 there were ~11,000 gun homicides. ~30,000 total gun deaths. In that same year there were 10,076 alcohol related car deaths.
So guns are responsible for more deaths that drunk drivers. Guns are also designed to kill. Drinking or driving are not.
5
@epk Last time I checked there isn't any advertising encouraging people to drive drunk - in fact it's the complete opposite. There are commercials warning people of the dangers of drinking and driving, billboards noting how many people have been arrested for DUIs, checkpoints, etc. So that comparison doesn't work.
3
@epk....Cars are not designed to kill people; military assault rifles are.
2
Just another case of diverting personal accountability. How about we sue the drug company for the lack of effectiveness for the drugs this loon was on? We don't need more lawyers-we need more accountability in a generation that has been raised thinking everything is someone else's fault. Meanwhile-gun sales will go through the roof. Get your favorites while they are still reasonably priced!
21
@Sagebursh Aristocrat, I already have mine, and a permit to carry. I don't need an assault weapon, or a gun that can kill a class a minute, thanks. Meanwhile, you're flinging your arms about over the "need" for assault weapons, the "right" of any maniac to have such killing power at his disposal, when you might actually be doing something useful. But never mind.
23
@Sagebursh Aristocrat...Accountability means that you don't advertise and sell assault rifles to the public. Responsible gun ownership means you support universal back ground checks.
30
@Sagebursh Aristocrat,
"We don't need more lawyers-we need more accountability in a generation that has been raised thinking everything is someone else's fault."
Lawyers -- THE LAW -- is where accountability comes from, more often than not. It's always been so, and it's always served humanity well.
26
I support individual gun ownership; I do not support lax accountability standards in the gun industry. The fact that it will always be possible for criminals to acquire guns is no excuse for making it easy.
7
@Roarke: if I had the impression they might ban the AR-15....I'd run out and buy one (or two).
I don't have any now, but I don't want lefty libs telling me what I can and cannot own.
1
This is terrific news. Of course, there's a long road ahead. But it's a tiny step against the narrative that the right to own military style weapons is NOT what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.
14
@Sylvia Regardless of where you come in on the debate, our forefathers absolutely meant for citizens to have "weapons of war" or "military-style" weapons because they just came back home from fighting a war, not hunting, where the govt was trying to disarm them. This demented kid didn't buy anything based on marketing. He stole the gun from his mom and she was most-likely not influenced by the "here's your man card" marketing message.
I’m surprised that the military industrial complex hasn’t been barred from supplying military grade firearms to civilians. A citizen can own a firearm, but where does the 2nd amendment protect the manufacture, distribution and sale of firearms? I guess the 1st amendment allows all kind of lying - it’s as American as apple pie, tax dodging and politics of the wealth class. Sad.
4
What a ridiculous ruling which basically twists fair trade law to permit parents to sue. A company can advertise its products any way it wants subject to fraud and regulations. Hyping a product for its “manliness” has nothing to do
with fair trade, and probably had no influence on the shooter, but every lawyer always looks for a deep pocket. In the case of gun manufacturers, however, the pocket isn’t so deep, but the dysfunctional state of Connecticut insists on driving jobs and manufacturers away, not that anyone in Fairfield County cares about the livelihood of the deplorables in other regions of an economically depressed state.
8
Since when was Connecticut economically depressed? The second-highest per-capita income of any state and 4% unemployment do not indicate anything like economic depression.
6
@Edward Agree! This opens the door for all kinds of lawsuits in other industries based on total lack of personal responsibility of the individual doing the actual deed. Mcdonalds made me fat, My iphone made me wreck my car when I looked at it, that violent video game made me more violent. where has personal responsibility gone?
1
@Pete H.
Hartford’s unemployment rate was 5.6% as of 12/2018 compared to 3.2% for Connecticut overall. Which county do you think brings the overall rate down because it’s basically a bedroom suburb for NYC?
An article in the Hartford Courant dated 07/06/2018 by Stephen Singer cites the sad statistics: “Connecticut is the only state to continue losing economic activity even since the end of the recession,” Manisha Srivastava, an economist at the state Office of Policy and Management, wrote in the latest issue of the Connecticut Economic Digest. “This lackluster economic growth has resulted in anemic revenue growth in the state, leading to years of budgetary constraints.”
So I don’t know where you’re getting your info from, but I visit Hartford frequently, and it is a sad shadow of what it used to be.
1
Reading the comments it is clear many of the people making the comments know nothing about guns. The AR is not marketed to kill school children and that is what the suit is claiming. The AR and the guns in this country are not marketed to kill people just as cars are not marketed to cause fatal accidents. Remington will file in federal court that the state suit violates the federal law and the state will lose at SCOTUS.
7
@Jonathan - then what are high caliber machine guns marketed FOR? Shredding deer? Turning coyotes into hamburger? If gun companies refuse to cooperate with common sense, refuse to make these weapons available ONLY by rigorous and thorough background checks and tighter penalties, etc., then let their greed be curbed by commerce...make them pay. That in the end is all they understand. They have placed themselves in economic and moral crosshairs. Let's "pull the (economic and moral) trigger"...
12
@Jonathan
What exactly is the purpose of individual citizens owning an AR?
4
@Jonathan Amen! This country is all about placing the blame on someone else. The kid who carried out this horrible event didn't even buy the gun, he stole it, so how could he be influenced to purchase a gun by Remington marketing messages.
2
" ... the National Rifle Association ... contended in its brief that allowing the case to move ahead stood to 'eviscerate' the gun companies’ legal protections ... " They say that like its a bad thing. Why do we have a " ... federal law shielding the gun companies from litigation ... " anyway? Surely NRA campaign donations had nothing to do with it, as the lawmakers always tell us. (Then try to make it into the limo before they crack up laughing.)
4
@Steve Kennedy The gun lobby is not is not protected from litigation if they produce a defective product but suing them because people use their products for wrongful purposes is like suing Ford because a customer used the car to run over somebody....This will go nowhere and it shouldn't.
1
Gun Lobby, meet your formidable opponent, the Tort Lobby.
13
I'm glad the marketing of firearms is now in the crosshairs. Of course, there is so much other incitement to gun violence in movies and online that it's unlikely to have much effect if manufacturers are punished for their marketing strategy. Progress, nonetheless.
8
@abigail49
Umm...so are you going to have HOLLYWOOOD sued?
1
It's reprehensible that Congress ever passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The act needs to be repealed. There is simply no reason why gun manufacturers should be shielded from liability. In fact, quite the opposite. Maybe if they were accountable they'd take some action to stop the gun violence epidemic in this country.
18
@Lisa K
The law protected gun companies from frivolous lawsuits like this one, not from the liability caused from producing a defective product.
"Held accountable" for what? You're blaming a company because of the evil acts of a few.
1
@Silence54 I doubt the parents of the gunned down children at Sandy Hook believe this lawsuit is frivolous.
@John
If their children were killed with a Ford would they be suing them? Try a little common sense.
We need to keep saying this: When the Second Amendment was written, "arms" meant pistols and muskets. There's nothing in the Second Amendment that grants you the right to "keep and bear" any kind of weapon you can get your hands on.
Foreign terrorist web sites urge followers to come to America where it's relatively easy to obtain powerful weapons designed to make it easy to inflict maximum damage on human beings in seconds. And yet, Mitch McConnell's Senate even shot down a 2015 bill that would have prevented people on terrorist watchlists from instantly obtaining guns. That's madness.
We have a government, and a citizenry, held hostage at gunpoint, and our elected representatives are accomplices. But you can't be in favor of responsible gun use AND against reasonable regulation of gun manufacture, sales, and ownership. We forget that the NRA (which says it has only 5 million members) was formed as a gun safety organization that used to back reasonable regulations. It didn't become the fanatical right-wing paramilitary political lobby we know today until the mid-1970s.
Guns far outnumber people in this country, though only 19% of people own them and 3% of the population own half the number of guns.
Those who promote wholesale access to so-called "assault weapons" have to be held responsible for how they're used. If you claim you don't approve of the kinds of mass shootings that have become commonplace in America, what are you actually doing to prevent them?
24
"When the Second Amendment was written, "arms" meant pistols and muskets."
When the Second Amendment was written, pistols and muskets were state of the art front line military grade weapons. That WAS the specific intent of the ("fanatical right-wing paramilitary?) Founding Fathers; to ensure the populace, or segments thereof, could not be controlled by a government that might not be representing their interests.
2
@jim emerson Regardless of where you come in on the debate, our forefathers absolutely meant for citizens to have "weapons of war" or "military-style" weapons because they just came back home from fighting a war, not hunting, where the govt was trying to disarm them. This demented kid didn't buy anything based on marketing. He stole the gun from his mom and she was most-likely not influenced by the "here's your man card" marketing message.
2
@jim emerson "pistols and muskets". Those who no not the history of firearms should not go about making such statements. So since it was signed in 1776, which category does the Puckel Gun invented in 1718 fall under? Pistol or musket? If you think the 2nd amendment should limited to "guns of the founding fathers time" then sure! In fact let's have everyone own an M134 because the Puckel Gun is the M134 of 1718! Maybe instead of repeated the same talking points that unresearched people spit, you yourself should do some research and educate yourself before someone like me sheds some light. Have a nice day!
I am so delighted that out of this horrific never ending nightmare of gun violence something good has happened. It won’t bring the smile or laughter but a measure of satisfaction.
14
These parents, in their unimaginable grief, held strong and didn't give up against the immorality of the gun companies that put semiautomatic rifles in the hands of a school murderer.
There are no congratulations and appreciations strong enough for this group of American heroes, who have turned ultimate tragedy into a blow against those who perpetrate it. As the mother of an elementary school teacher, I thank them from the bottom of my heart; they have proven that "it can't be done" is not true. Thank you; you have made schools a little safer today.
23
@kay o. I donated to Sandy Hook Promise when Alex Jones was harassing these parents. I am motivated to keep these parents and their lawyers moving forward with more donations to their organization.
16
@Ann Smith
Thank you so much for supporting the Promise effort, on behalf of my son and all teachers as well as students.
9
@Ann Smith
Great - I will donate $100 TODAY if you provide the FULL LENGTH, VERIFIABLE QUOTE that:
1) Proves Alex Jones said ANYTHING to the parents (where is the quote?)
2) Told people to bother the parents. Again-- WHERE is your attribution? Do you know what attribution means?
I'm always pleased to hear of cases succeeding against the makers and promoters of assault rifles. The U.S. Congress should really be pushing a return to the old assault rifle ban that was once in effect until NRA lobbyists derailed it.
Connecticut has a forward-thinking law on the books and the court "found the case can move forward based on a state law regarding unfair trade practices." In this case, though, Remington's bankruptcy status would seem to protect it from actually having to pay out.
Federal law "does allow exceptions for sale and marketing practices that violate state or federal laws and instances of so-called negligent entrustment, in which a gun is carelessly given or sold to a person posing a high risk of misusing it."
Here I see another problem with this case: Legally, the individual who 'negligently' entrusted the gun to the killer would seem to be his mother, who was murdered herself by the son who appropriated the gun used it in this attack.
Much as I applaud the litigants for using their limited ability to ultimately win this case, who will pay in the end" Remington (shielded by bankruptcy) or Nancy Lanza, dead and gone.
Still, in the absence of more responsible state and federal laws, it is wise to go after the money, which seems to be the only path to justice for the families of these victims.
If nothing else, the despicable NRA must spend time and resources filing their nihilistic amicus briefs in cases similar to this in the future.
14
@Boudicca: Your statement regarding the term "assault rifle" IGNORANT.
Do you have ANY experience using firearms? If you did, then you would not have made such an ignorant statement.
@Owhata Jerkiam
Right. Should have used the term "assault weapon." Happy now?
2
The choice of the Congress to exempt gun makers from responsibility for their actions is inexcusable. If companies have the same rights as individuals as apparently the courts have ruled, do they not also have the responsibilities individuals have? Would it be permissible for the Congress to name certain individuals as being exempt from lawsuit over their culpability for certain deeds? At some future time when reason reigns, Congress' exemptions will be seen as outrageous and overt corruption.
15
@Boltarus
You're right, and yet car manufacturers, big chain restaurants, tobacco companies, slumlords, toy makers, etc. CAN be sued.
It all seems like logical fallacy.
2
@Boltarus Guns are products like cars. Bad drivers cause death on our highways. Only if the car is poorly designed or malfunctions is the manufacturer liable for death and injury. The responsibility for crimes of violence falls squarely on the gun user and gun owner if his or her firearm is not secured and falls into the hands of a criminal or a child.
1
Beyond just gun control, this decision and its potential consequent release of internal communications by the defendant companies may highlight an on-going problem in American Justice. When prosecutors, DA's, and attorneys general decide not to prosecute cases, the evidence remains sealed.
There is a salutory value to every stage from arrest through trial when cases proceed. It is, with the exception of certain Nat. Sec. cases, a highly public process. After the 2008 financial collapse we did not even see the 'perp walk' of the heads of the banks and financial institutions that brought the world economy down. To solve overcrowded dockets, prosecutors often prefer plea bargains or settlements that may skip the public evidence stage altogether.
This makes the job of prosecutors and the courts easier, but it overlooks the clear constitutional intention that there be a public release of data relating to crimes & trials. Certainly, a person mistakenly or wrongly charged with something they did not do should not be convicted. But from #MeToo cases to civil suits over official misconduct to the collapse of Washington Mutual Bank, such privacy concern conflicts with the public right to know. The Court needs to look more clearly at what the public right to know really means Constitutionally in legal cases. Deciding whether to arrest and/or try should be decided by a judge who will not be the trial judge.
4
What other industries have been shielded by these vast protections from litigation? It just shows that congress has been utterly bought by their overlords in the NRA & gun lobby. There was absolutely no legitimate basis to single out & shield this industry. In the absence of regulation which Republicans despise, tort actions are the only way to bring any accountability to these massive, moneyed corporate interests.
17
@Jared
Gun manufacturers are not shielded from liability if they make a defective product.
2
@Jared
Wrong answer, Jared. What part of the INDIVIDUAL RIGHT to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed" don't you understand?
The shooter's mother was an IDIOT keeping firearms in the house when she knew her son was not right in the head.
The same is true about parents who let their teens borrow the car -- and the teens get drunk, smash the car, and kill innocent people.
Answer me this: Do the victims of death by auto SUE GENERAL MOTORS?
Why not be honest and admit:
1) You know little to nothing about the history and legislative intent of the 2nd Amendment and
2) You have a Left Wing political agenda.
Legally owned firearms protect and save FAR MORE LIVES than what are taken through negligence and crime. Up to 1 MILLION crimes are prevented through the direct and indirect use of firearms in America (go read up on John Lott's studies and come back when you are educated).
...and spare the "suicide" argument. While about half of all firearms-related deaths are from suicide, you don't need a gun to end your life.
1
@Owhata Jerkiam I find this screed utterly unpersuasive. What part of a “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” do you not understand? If it means nothing, WHY did the founders put it in at all? Obviously the second clause of the amendment is SUBORDINATE to the first. The right to bear arms is constrained within the context of the founders’ specification of “ a well regulated militia.” The Sandy Hook murderer was clearly not a well regulated militia.
This is the best news I've heard in a long time! Accountability is a beautiful thing!
16
@Ann Smith With the logic used here "the marketing made me do it" I guess we can go back to that old argument that video games, rap music and movies really do influence young people to make them more violent. Hollywood doesn't have a marketing message without violence. Flick through movie posters and count how many guns you see. Regardless of where you are on the gun debate, this was a horrible decision because it basically said the kid who picked up the gun to evil is not responsible.
1
@Ann Smith Accountability for what?? If someone uses a car to run over someone do you blame Ford?? Come on......a little common sense goes a long way.
@Ann Smith
You better pray you are never attacked or in a situation where you need an armed citizen to protect you.
...because I am sure with an attitude like yours you:
1) Are a Leftist
2) Have no understanding of the Bill of Rights
3) Never had to defend yourself
4) Live with the false illusion the police are OBLIGATED to protect you.
Try reading Warren v. District of Columbia, if you are capable and get educated about what a thin line exists between you and the "bad guys".
1
The Constitution does not protect the rights of gun manufacturers, advertisers and marketers, it protects the rights of gun bearers in a "well organized militia". The Second Amendment was never intended to be a prop for the profits of a bloated consumer entertainment oriented firearms industry.
14
@Carl Hultberg:
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
The Constitution does not protect the rights of gun manufacturers to advertise to children.
It also doesn't protect the rights of people to buy weapons or even to own the firearms they are being permitted bear in the name of their "well organized militia".
3
@Carl Hultberg first off Carl, this is a trojan horse and it will not succeed.
1
So, next do we allow victims of terrorists to sue car companies, backpack and pressure cooker makers?
The responsibility lies with the person who misused the technology, not the manufacturer of it.
5
Guns are designed to cause destruction, whether of objects or living things. Cars, backpacks and pressure cookers are designed for other purposes. Big difference.
32
@Andrea P. But a good lawyer could now make the argument that violent movies, music and video games - all that appeal to masculinity and violence in their marketing - could be responsible as well, right?
3
@James Hoffa
The AR-15 and other semiautomatic rifles were marketed as combat weapons. That is as plain as day to anyone who has been paying attention for the last ten years.
8
"Lawyers representing the gun companies argued that the claims raised in the lawsuit were specifically the kind that law inoculated them against. They said that agreeing with the families’ arguments would require amending the law or ignoring how it had been applied in the past." Truer words were never spoken. Now all that remains is to amend the law to remove the protection and more importantly discarding the past cynical judicial history that allowed these tragedies to recur unchecked. Perhaps there is hope for change. If arms manufacturers are compelled to produce internal memos, they may find the tide of public and legislative opinion turn against them, just as it did for Big Tobacco.
15
@Ockham9 I think you missed the point of the ruling. It's specifically to use case law to TEST whether or not the advertising utilized by the manufacturer fall within the guidelines of the law. If a manufacturer of something that can be lethal advertises it in such a way to specifically target those who are likely to use it illegally, that should be checked. So - you missed the point. At worst - this would change the tactics used in future advertising of these products.
1
@Ockham9 How do you figure exposing internal memos will somehow turn the tide in terms of gun violence?
Do you think internal memos will show marketing was targeted at the mentally ill? At children? At criminals?
These mass shootings have mainly been committed by the mentally ill and red flags were present -- they were simply ignored.
Guns have been a part of America since its founding, but with this uptick in mass shootings (not a rise in actual gun-related deaths), there has been a systemic social change. That is what needs to be studied.
4
@Justin. Not really. The point I wish to make is that by allowing the case to move forward, arms manufacturers will be compelled to produce internal memos. Once that is done, the manufacturers' words may do more to help change the immunity law than gun safety groups have in all their activism.
5
I know most people here are happy with the ruling, but you need to consider what it does to the legal system as a whole. The gun in question was legal. The advertisements are free speech (there was nothing said that was a threat or otherwise false). Trying to use emotionally susceptible juries to ban AR-15s through litigation is a dangerous precedent.
How would you feel is some jury in a deep-red state found that Planned Parenthood's promotional materials improperly influenced an emotionally susceptible teenager to have an abortion, awarding her parents millions. That would be outrageous, right? People on the right feel the same way about this. That is why we have a process: vote for legislators and then they pass laws. If you don't like AR-15s, then vote.
8
@Eric I'm firmly in the camp that this ruling is a breakthrough and long-overdue, but this is a very good point. The difference between the examples listed, though, is scale. It's a lot easier for a lot of people to lose their lives where guns are involved than over individuals' choices to terminate a pregnancy.
As a counterpoint, I work on Amazon's Alexa, specifically curating hand-written answers for sensitive topics like religion, laws, and medicine. We have to be stupid careful with our answers for these so people can't claim "Alexa told them to do it." YouTube faces the same sort of thing without being directly responsible for producing the content on its site. If we're held to those standards, it follows that gun manufacturers should be held accountable for their own "content".
13
@Eric I think you missed the point of the ruling. It's specifically to use case law to TEST whether or not the advertising utilized by the manufacturer fall within the guidelines of the law. If a manufacturer of something that can be lethal advertises it in such a way to specifically target those who are likely to use it illegally, that should be checked. So - you missed the point. At worst - this would change the tactics used in future advertising of these products.
2
@EricPlanned Parenthood actually works hard, not to dissuade pregnant women but to offer them all the options available to them before they commit to an abortion. Unfortunately, if a woman doe'snt have a home, or a job, or a husband, or a partner, or insurance, its unlikely she will be able to take on the job of full time mommy, or even just bring a healthy fetus to term for adoption. So the options are limited. And adoption isnt much of an option to begin with....theres over 100000 kids waiting right now for loving homes.
9
I now await a lawsuit from a state attorney general (any state, I don't care) suing the gun manufacturers over the excessive rate of firearms production, which has directly affected public health. Anyone???
6
@it wasn't me
I'd call it progress...
The Sandy Hook families are to be applauded for their grit and determination while grieving for their relative’s senseless deaths. The NRA’s original mission is long gone and replaced by profit for gun manufacturers over any sensible regulation and use fear tactics and conspiracy to promote their mission. When a retired FBI agent told me to carry a tourniquet, and always know my exit strategy at all times from public gatherings I thought, lobbyists have won. He said our local dog park had a training class and you have to show records of vaccinations etc etc. But I have renewed my faith in common sense and I haven’t given up hope. Weapons of war can stay at war. No safety training, no background checks in many places, this gig must end.
34
If gun company internal communications are exposed, deeply cynical machinations will show. The strange love Americans have with guns isn't accidental. It's built by an American-as-apple-pie industry. The NRA is their front.
The gun lobby's cynicism extends to courts. Their federal protection was granted in a cynically twisted Scalia decision. It invented history, as if Supreme Court can legitimate fiction as reality.
Until gun manufacturers drove it's reinterpretation through propaganda and decisions, the American legal system saw the 2nd amendment as all about militias. Previous generations appreciated grammar. The constitution and amendments agglomerate ideas. Key is their use of conjunctions.
If militias AND the public have a right to guns, the 2nd would protect two distinct groups. Treason, for example, involves taking up arms OR comforting an enemy. But the 2nd has only commas. It's all about Washington's fury over militia members who showed up without guns, expecting one for service. He knew they had one at home.
Washington's support of the Constitution was critical, the only person with national appeal. Madison played to his concerns. The public opposed a standing army. Defense would be militia based. Washington wanted the assumption made that they had their own guns.
Madison, too clever by half, couched it with broad language that would appeal to many audiences. He didn't realize how radically different eras would twist his words.
14
@Brian
You are just making up stuff, Read some real history. The second amendment was always intended to be an individual right. Even Obama admitted this.
2
While hardly misled or influenced by any type of gun company ads,towards masculinity or anything else,this atrocity was enabled one hundred percent by his mother.If you research the actual facts Landas mother purchased all the weapons and ammunition legally and stored them un secured in the home.Unbelievable as it was ,she also began to have doubts concerning her sons mental state which he soon became aware of and paranoid of.It's been a theory that she hoped to connect to her son through shooting sports,unaware of his actual condition and that he killed her first ,before going to the school grounds. Still as the truth unfolded ,police ,again like in the Columbine tragedy ,police had reports of instability . Gun companies liability is questioned ,but in this instance it is others who must bear the responsibility.
1
@Alan Einstoss This is not an all-or-nothing thing. We can hold the gun manufacturers to reasonable standards while also pursuing other ways to avoid tragedies. In fact, if you look at the Sandy Hook parents, you will see that they are doing just that.
12
@Alan Einstoss
It was reported, in depth, by one news organization that Nancy Lanza thought she had a terminal illness. She could have been suicidal and just didn't care what Adam did with his guns. It might have been a suicide pact. But you might say how could anyone be so evil. He did the shooting. Isn't that evil?
2
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus Interesting enough ,its more than conjecture that the woman was involved in a venture of liberal activism directed at gun confiscation.She knew that her son would use the semi auto weapons to possibly do harm except exactly what harm was the question.With each shooting pushing the government closer to confiscation Nancy Landa was prepared to try.
This is such a positive development from so many perspectives. Why was there ever a shield against product/corporate liability for gun manufacturers? For all the countless examples of intended and unintended harm caused, shouldn't it be clear to all that the gun industry ought to be subject to accountability as is the case with all other major industries? If a vehicle is deemed unsafe, the manufacturer can be found liable in criminal and/or civil courts. And the same is true for the operator of a vehicle if harm is caused under their ownership. The truth is, you don't have to be anti-guns to agree that gun manufacturers need to be subject to reasonable standards governing liability.
10
@ac I didn't see it like that at all. I see it more like suing the car manufacturer because someone intentionally ran over a bunch of people.
6
@Bryce Cars do serve a utility function. I fail to see the utility function of a AR-15-style Bushmaster for civilians. I applaud this ruling.
9
@ac
I've never seen a gun discharge by itself! Somehow there has to be an intervention by a human to load, point and then pull the trigger. So this notion of manufacturing liability doesn't fit as someone needs to carry out those steps. In an event where those steps are carried out in an irresponsible manner has nothing to do with the manufacturer.
2
as with all new safety measures, it begins with liability, if you're in a car accident that's not your fault, but you're not wearing a seat belt and get thrown from the vehicle causing yourself or others injury, a percentage of those injuries can be found to be your own fault. If you're a car manufacturer and your car's seat belts don't work, your advertising suggests people don't need seat belts, or doesn't support safety, then fault shifts to the manufacturer, leading to funding for vehicle safety research and seat belt laws. The same funding and support for safety legislation will occur from the gun industry when the potential for financial liability legally falls to the gun manufacturers.
15
As a gun owner and concealed firearm permit holder, I am glad gun manufacturers are being held to account for their greedy marketing practices to get their weapons to appeal to people with mental issues.
As an Army veteran, I am glad this is the first step in getting more weapons of war (assault weapons) out of gun stores and off the streets as they have no place in the civilian population.
47
@mrpisces
Thank you and well put, the majority of the civilian population can’t remember to not walk out into traffic looking at their phone. I think military capable automatic assault weapons I could be out of their reach.
6
@mrpisces
First, thank you for your service to our our Great Country. I must disagree with your assessment however. Limiting the types of firearms one can have or purchase is ludicrous. It would be the same as saying you can't buy a Mustang GT because it can achieve speeds of over 130 mph! This is the land of the free & home of the brave not a communist dictatorship!
2
@Tim Serbin The analogy is not the same. We don't allow hand grenades, machine guns, RPGs, etc., for the same reason. These are also weapons and they are all regulated as in "Well regulated militia.....".
How many elementary school first graders have been killed purposely with a Mustang GT or a Corvette?
What performance car was used in the Las Vegas massacre recently?
Speaking of vehicles, can you drive a Formula One racing vehicle on the Interstate?
The car you drive is well regulated and yet people don't complain about us being a communist dictatorship.
The AR-15 platform was designed for the military. Even the original designer for it at Armalite didn't own one because he didn't see any civilian purpose for it.
If you want a home defense weapon, there are many handguns and shotguns to choose from.
If you want to go hunting deer or moose, there are many hunting rifles superior to the AR-15 that you can choose from.
The AR-15 platform was designed to kill as many people as possible in a combat environment just like machine guns, grenades, anti-personnel weapons, etc.... The AR-15 platform was never designed to compete or replace civilian hunting rifles, shotguns, or handguns.
I come from a hunting and military family and know very well the meaning of land of the free and home of the brave. I have that plastered on my living room wall with my family military pictures.
3
Like many things in this country, the gun debate/2d amendment debate is basically about making money. NRA is pushing for more people to buy more guns so that the gun makers can make more money. The gun makers contribute handsomely to the NRA so that their executives can pocket big pay checks and spend to lobby politicians to get favorable laws like the one mentioned here which shields guns makers from liability. Many of the Congress critters are basically open to supporting anything or anyone if helps their reelection.
This is all quite profitable but I wonder how the people at the NRA and the gun makers sleep at night. Most people would have a guilty conscience if they were making big bucks on the back of mass killings with AK 47's and other high powered guns which nobody needs for protection or hunting. I have read that many of those innocent children at Sandy Hook were shot up so badly that they were unrecognizable.
12
I am neutral on the 2nd Amendment but I definitely am in favor of making the gun industry liable for their products. The way they market guns and have created America's gun culture is identical to what the tobacco industry did with creating the Marlboro Man myth and the smoking culture in America. And just as the tobacco industry was held liable, the gun industry should also be held responsible for their marketing tactics.
21
I am in awe of these Sandy Hook families. I can't begin to imagine the kind of pain they have endured, and to have the strength to bring this case and carry it forward is truly heroic. Every single American owes them a debt of gratitude for their vision, fortitude, and determination. I hope they do not feel alone. I and many others are standing with them every step of the way, and will be cheering them and their brilliant lawyers on to victory, which I feel sure will happen. The tide of change is already overtaking the gun industry. Most Americans support some form of gun control. Remington, I hope you don't RIP. You have far too much blood on your hands for that.
47
Good.
My sister is a teacher in Newtown. She was at Sandy Hook that morning, left just before it happened. I have no sympathy for gun manufacturers. I hope they lose millions.
64
Not enough words or ways to thank the Sandy Hook families, who could have collectively and understandably curled up and descended into an endless darkness over this, for fighting back.
Thank you to all victims or family and friends of victims of gun violence, everywhere, who have found it in themselves to advocate for sane gun laws and ownership.
I think about you when I have one of those moments so many of us have now, in a public place, where you look around and find yourself wondering, 'Where would I run if...?"
36
So, to the many anti-gun control people here who do not believe in regulating the industry - do you have an constructive, as opposed to obstructionist, words of wisdom here? You do not see the need for any gun regulation, to individuals or the industry - but certainly you are not OK with the number of gun deaths (homicide, suicide, and accident) in this country? Or is that not a concern to you?
18
@Susi
I'm not OK with crime. But I don't laser focus on gun crime. And I don't see gun bans reducing crime anywhere. In England and Wales, murder rates are currently above the level when pistols were banned in the 90s. Even their very effective reduction in gun crime (by reasonably effectively eliminating guns) doesn't appear to have saved any lives.
Even indiscriminate killers won't stop if you ban guns. They'll just move to bombs and vehicles.
One thing guns absolutely do is remove the power imbalance for weaker, smaller and disabled people. Eliminating self defense tools (that can be used in assault) doesn't reduce assault rates, it just ensures that only the strongest people can resist an attacker.
If we pretend removing some tools will improve the problems, we'll end up with police raiding neighborhoods looking for unsecured butter knives as in London, and still with no improvement in murder or overall crime rates.
4
@Susi Well a majority of gun deaths are suicide..can't really help that. Following that is gang violence which stems from culture and is not a fault you can lay on guns. Finally the recorded defensive use of firearms far outweighs deaths taken by a gun. The range is anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million defensive uses of firearms. That's plenty more than homicides and suicides. *Note defensive gun use does not mean someone was killed or the gun was even fired.
2
@Keith Thank you for responding. But all I see is what you don't want to do, not what can be done for improvement. Do you have any suggestions in that vein? And, I never said anything about banning guns - your jump from gun control to gun ban is not logical. Automobiles are highly regulated - registration, insurance, licensing of users to show they are appropriately trained. The automobile industry is held to a certain degree of responsibility for the products they create. Regulation does not equal ban.
3
I don't trust the government (Fed, State, Local) to keep us safe. That being said, I am not sure if gun right activists realize how shaky the Second Amendment is right now. This generation just may not be able to handle access to guns. It won't take much for voters to sour on gun rights if these mass shootings continue to occur.
7
@TH I am surprised that gun rights advocates, who tend to be "conservatives," don't see the urgency for responsibility and self-regulation. The NRA was originally designed as a gun safety organization -- firearms training; the 2nd Amendment is rooted in slave patrols, and a dirty deal made with Virginia to quell slave rebellions with 40% or more of the population being chattel.
19
2nd amendment was not created to control slaves? Brush up on history. Read some letters from the found fathers on the subject. They were not about slaves.
1
About time. The advertising for this weapon of war clearly shows to whom Remington was marketing.
29
The truth if the matter is that firearm manufacturers, Conservatives and lobbyists don’t care about mass murder, their only goal is to make money and they don’t care how they do it. The “gun rights” activists like to see themselves as some sort of gun toting Rambos, and they don’t really care how many people are murdered, it just backs up their childish, selfish and totally irrational view of themselves in a shootout where they become the hero. It’s all very sad.
25
An utterly moronic decision.
Who appoints these terrible judges?
5
@Mr. Moderate
Moderate indeed!! I had to check the OED to see if there’s an obscure meaning of the word I didn’t know about. Didn’t find it there.
7
@Mr. Moderate
So, you disagree with a single decision this judge has made- therefore the judge is a moron, and you want to know who appointed them, presumably to call them a moron as well........
It is about time the NRA, the gun manufactures that make and support these weapons of war are held accountable for the deaths and misery they cause.
No one needs a machine gun, assault rifle with repeating clips or many of these other weapons used by mass murderers.
As always the US is behind the rest of the civilized world in laws and policies that protect human life. Time for the young, educated people to vote out the old dinosaurs bought and paid for by the NRA, who still live in the past and won't help the country evolve.
511
@Rich
Alternatively, you could read what the Founders of this nation thought on this topic. Start with Federalist 29, which lays out the case for ordinary citizens to be armed at the same level as the infantry of a standing army.
Or, don't, and keep saying things that are actually wrong.
8
@Rich
AR -15's are not assault rifles, one pull of the trigger, one round. The term is magazine not "clip". That being said, I am a responsible gun owner. I believe that training could be better depending on the state and I am already subject to background checks for weapons purchases.
What many anti-gun people fail to realize, gun laws are only effective on law abiding citizens. I follow the law but in this day and age criminals are far more brazen than ever before. I think the weak court system is to blame there. Many felons are released for whatever reason and first thing is let me go get a weapon. Its a vicious circle with no easy fix. But my weapons will stay with me and many other believers in the 2ND . I apologize if this offends certain people in some ways but if they grow up a little their feelings wont be hurt. Thank you.
7
@Objectivist
Alternatively you could acknowledge that the Founders couldn’t imagine the modern world nor the destructive power of its military grade weaponry. It is a fantasy to think they would have supported the scourge of bloodshed and misery that they cause.
53
“Many gun rights advocates raised their concerns fearing this case would eviscerate gun companies legal protections”.
Gun companies should not have special protection from consumer lawsuits. Other companies do not.
The only other liability could be the company that came up with their marketing strategy.
40
There's a place in hell for people who argue that we can be dispassionate about the murder of innocent elementary children.
153
@Carolyn Davila There is an even deeper ring in hell for those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security while walking all over our second amendment.
2
This is great news, but expect the NRA to rise up even more than ever to support Republican candidates in 2020 who would claim to protect the Second Amendment.
8
If a toy on the market harms a child, the manufacturer can be held financially responsible. If someone is harmed or killed by a gun, the manufacturer should be held financially responsible. If gun manufacturers had to shell out their cash, they would be far more careful to sell their product to responsible adults. Background checks would be strict as well as considerable waiting periods. Guns can be traced back to the manufacturer, so they would have strict regulations for re-sales.
38
@Suzanne how about a drunk driving a Ford or GM? Sue the company? This will be shot down in SCOTUS, again.
7
@Suzanne Crane
Missed the boat on your analogy. If a faulty toy kills a child the manufacturer is liable, if a toy is used as the murder weapon or used a manner it was not intended it is not the manufacturers liability but the intent.
I fully agree that assault weapons should be illegal but if the weapon operated to spec it's the human that's liable. Or is it Government that's liable for allowing weapons of mass distruction in the common markets?
1
@PanchoVilla
Bad analogy.
Guns are ultimately intended for only one thing: killing or maiming other living creatures.
Automobiles are intended for moving people safely from one place to another.
Sadly, people do drive drunk and occasionally kill themselves or others with a vehicle but that was probably not the intention of the driver. And, actually, there are now devices that will prevent heavy drinkers from starting their car. When a deranged individual employs a firearm the intention in unequivocally to do harm.
Nearly 40,000 people died from guns that were made and heavily marketed by these manufacturers made last year.
It's time for the right wing to start exercising some of that personal responsibility they're always preaching-these manufacturers can start by taking responsibility for this carnage.
60
@common sense advocate
2/3 were suicides. Rifles of any type are involved in less than 200-300 of our national homicides per year, justified or unjustified. Marketing of AR-15s is not driving murder in this country, no matter which way you cut it.
1
@Arctic Vista - it's been proven that many suicides would never happen if guns weren't available:
"The real tragedy behind suicide deaths—about 30,000 a year, one for every 45 attempts—is that so many could be prevented. Research shows that whether attempters live or die depends in large part on the ready availability of highly lethal means, especially firearms. A study by the Harvard School of Public Health of all 50 U.S. states reveals a powerful link between rates of firearm ownership and suicides. Based on a survey of American households conducted in 2002, HSPH Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management Matthew Miller, Research Associate Deborah Azrael, and colleagues at the School’s Injury Control Research Center (ICRC), found that in states where guns were prevalent—as in Wyoming, where 63 percent of households reported owning guns—rates of suicide were higher. The inverse was also true: where gun ownership was less common, suicide rates were also lower."
Read up on it - thousands of lives depend on it.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/
2
Excellent News. But just why do they even have immunity to begin with ??? Pay-Offs, aka Campaign Donations. Anyone taking Money from the NRA/ Manufacturers will never, ever get a dime from me, and certainly NOT a VOTE. Period.
28
@Phyliss Dalmatian
I agree. How about starting a list of all politicians "in bed" with the Gun-Industrial-Complex--whether they receive campaign "donations" or own shares in their portfolios. It would be required information--i.e. to be disclosed to all American voters.
So i guess we can now sue automakers for car accidents. Regardless of the outcome.
2
@Nope
Yes of course, if there's reason to believe a defect in the vehicle contributed to the crash.
28
@Nope yes, that can absolutely be done under certain conditions. Not however, "regardless of the outcome"; you throwing that in is an exaggeration.
15
This is a false parallel. Cars, while dangerous, are NOT weapons.
Also drivers are controlled by licenses issued only after driving and written tests are passed - which the NRA would certainly not allow or support.
21
Now that gun makers can be sued, maybe they'll push for sane gun control legislation. And maybe they'll tell the NRA to back off the CRAZY, hate-mongering, threatening ads.
18
I know one of the parents who lost a child in that shooting, he'll never fully recover.... Congrats to all the families- go get 'em!
34
Republicans go crazy over the few immigrants who killed a handful of Americans, even willing to waste billions on a stupid wall, but they stonewall and defend their NRA masters while we have an epidemic of daily mass shootings by and of Americans. Bravo for the Sandy Hook parents, the true patriots--defending American school children.
1084
@DaDa Fentanyl and it's like products killed twice the amount of Americans last year ,99% comes across the border. Nobody cares about drugs ,or the border,its not as sensational for politicians as firearms are. and if all the drugs get taken away ,who's going to care?
6
@DaDa
Let's face it: there are three Americas. One is the one of the GOP, NRA and Citizen's United. The second made out of progressives who want medicare for all, free pubic college, gender equality, finance reform, sane environmental policy, 21st century infrastructure including free internet access (people already paid for its R&D), tax reform and civility. In between the two, there is the center-right Democrats whose species is almost extinct. They are clinging on to dinosaurs like Biden and Hillary. I hope most will join the second group and live happily ever after. Otherwise we are all doomed under Fascism that is coming fast.
21
Alan, nobody cares about drugs? The prisons are full of dealers and addicts. Not with gun industry moguls, last I heard. Mega-billions are spent each year on incarceration, rehabilitation, interdiction and more. Nobody cares about the border? Why is the Congress having to wrestle a president who is a monomaniac about his "wall", lying that democrats don't care when Obama deported more than Bush did? It's Trump's go-to issue when the rest of the nation and world are too much for him. We've got a crawful of it, thanks.
It's time to look at the killer of more Americans than all the illegal immigrants commit put together. And that's spelled g-u-n-s for sale.
29
Now perhaps sanity will start to occur in the US related to guns. If we cannot deliver a death blow to the NRA this may do it indirectly, no guns manufactured = no guns sold, and none for the NRA to protect at all costs both to those who live in America and lived in America and were killed by these weapons. After all we have brought Big Tobacco down a peg, why not Big Killer, the Gun Industry. Sport should take 2nd seat to people's lives.
18
Remember folks! Devices specifically designed and manufactured to deliver a projectile with lethal force to as many targets as quickly and accurately as possible, don't kill. The people who operate these devices for their singular, intended purpose do.
14
@NobodyOfConsequence: True, but the killers want to kill as many people as possible so they buy these military weapon knockoffs. These weapons are not designed for the hunter or target shooting enthusiasts, they are designed and marketed for the sick and paranoid people who believe that certain races, or people or some other political viewpoints or political parties are a direct threat to them.
As a gun owner, I am all in favor of prohibition these military style rifles and in holding the gun makers responsible for their production and sale. We need stricter gun laws.
1
@NobodyOfConsequence
Your logic is sorely lacking. The person is responsible but so is the manufacturer of a product that kills many people very quickly. Such weapons have no place for self-defense, hunting or target shooting. Thankfully, the court agreed.
@Jeff We absolutely do need stricter gun laws. My comment is a satirical take on the "Guns don't kill..." trope. I could have also have said that nuclear weapons don't kill people, the people who detonate them do, to make the same point.
The advertising is especially bad. I found the "Man Card," ads for the Bushmaster particularly awful. Talk about toxic masculinity.
From the article: "Many gun-rights groups also raised their concerns, including the National Rifle Association, which contended in its brief that allowing the case to move ahead stood to “eviscerate” the gun companies’ legal protections."
Maybe it's high time that the gun industry stop hiding behind dubious legal shields, and squarely faced the carnage their products continually wreak on the citizenry at large.
Adam Lanza pretty effectively eviscerated the legal protections and rights-to-life of 20 hapless school children, and 6 of their brave teachers, with a Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle. Is this what a "man card" is really all about? ...slaughtering babies???
My parents and other adults taught me that my "man card" was all about discharging my personal responsibilities to others, especially my family; getting up in the morning, puling up my socks and putting on my shoes and getting out there and doing what needed to be done, because other people were depending on me -- doing the hard things, the tedious things, the necessary things. And only AFTER I had discharged all of my responsibilities to others, was I free to take some time for myself.
The idea that anyone needs a firearm to be a man is just total rubbish -- patent nonsense, risible on its face.
60
@Michael B
Spot on. And nothing is more revolting than a"pro-life" or "right-to-life" man with an arsenal of guns in his closet.
2
We’re coming for the guns........... The Era of the NRA is coming to a close.......
8
@William When you're coming for my gun, I'll give you the ammo first. Bank on it !!
The most amazing thing about the victory of the gun lobby, and I do think it is a clear victory, is that even their opponents and detractors still uphold some of the lobby's viewpoints as valid. This entire country (USA) has been brainwashed by the gun industry, the entertainment complex (video games, movies and TV shows), and the military and the police, into espousing a hypermasculine, paranoid and fantastic understanding of the need for personal weapons of mass destruction. We only needed pistols and rifles for many generations - for hunting, and for personal protection, in one's home. We never needed assault rifles; we never needed automated weapons. If an intruder is in your house, you are not going to spray him with bullets. You certainly don't hunt pheasant that way. (Unless your Dick Cheney). This was all an elaborate deception, preying on a gutless and greedy Congress and a eviscerated Supreme Court.
To top it off, it may turn out that the NRA are traitors or useful idiots to the ex-KGB that run Russia.
14
@mbm Russia! Yep, it had to be the Russians, again.
@mbm
just to be clear, cheney was using a shotgun, not an assault rifle. his problem was that he was drinking and hunting, as i recall.
and what a dilemma for his buddy. that guy pretty much had to just take a bunch of birdshot to the FACE and smile about it. what was he gonna do? sue the VP? what a chump.
Shame on you, NYT, for giving the final word in this article to the perpetrators rather than the victims.
9
Let us all remember the first phrase of the Second Amendment, which puts it all in perspective: If you want a musket, you have to join the National Guard.
15
@George Kamburoff where does it say that?. It says no where you need to join a NATIONAL GUARD!!. A Militia at that time was local citizens. Farmers, laborers etc. Put that into perspective.
1
James B. Vogts, a lawyer for Remington, said during oral arguments that the shooting “was a tragedy that cannot be forgotten.”
“But no matter how tragic,” he added, “no matter how much we wish those children and their teachers were not lost and those damages not suffered, the law needs to be applied dispassionately.”
OK. Change the law.....
Oh, I forgot, the lawmakers are funded by the gun companies and their NRA lobbying arm.
13
@Mike yeah, some "dispassion," right?
1
"Consider your man-card reissued."
This is pathetic.
10
I think the courts need to go back and think this one out, by their reasoning one could sue the match company for selling matches to someone committing arson or the auto manufactures if someone used a car or truck to run people over.
Just because someone misuses a piece of equipment does not make the manufacturer responsible for that person's misdeed.
@BTO
You're wrong. Manufacturers are often regulated to not market products that can be easily misused by people.
Certain types of fertilizers are regulated because it's too easy to turn them into explosives.
Prescription drugs are regulated because people purposefully misuse them.
Boeing is responsible even though some pilots made errors controlling their planes.
We recall cars for missing safety features, even if driver errors contribute to the problems.
See, your analogy is simply wrong.
13
@BTO ...I think you miss the point, it was the type of advertising used to sell the the weapon that supports the lawsuit, not the "tool" itself
4
@BTO well that depends on the marketing clearly. "Angry breakup - console yourself with matches" or "Dont like your neighbors dog? Buy an F150 to be the alpha again". This case seems to state if gun ads were like "this is a good gun for shooting bullets or protecting your house" there would be no issue. I agree with your final paragraph but the gun manu's and NRA (lol) seem to do very little to control gun violence when all gun owners just want to be quietly proud of their gun safety etc
The guns worked as advertised. There is no product liability.
There is no way they can win. The lawyers should be ashamed of themselves.
3
@George Orwell so should the court.
These families are heroic.
21
Grammar, history, and logic all tie the ability to have arms to membership in a well regulated miltia. There is no other reasonable conclusion.
14
Consider this set of facts: Some guy holds up a neighborhood convenience store and kills the owner with a box knife. Should the manufacturer of the box knife be sued for being a part of the crime? If the thug drives away in a Chevy should GM be sued?
This is ruling is pure wishful thinking and will be overturned in a heartbeat. Federal law clearly outlaws suits of this sort against gun companies.
4
@Johnny Stark
You're wrong.
Manufacturers are often regulated to not market products that can be easily misused by people.
Certain types of fertilizers are regulated because it's too easy to turn them into explosives.
Prescription drugs are regulated because people purposefully misuse them.
Boeing is responsible even though some pilots made errors controlling their planes.
We recall cars for missing safety features, even if driver errors contribute to the problems.
See, your analogy is simply wrong.
4
@Johnny Stark who cares about the decision and the post decision legal theatrics. Discovery will do to guns what discovery did to tobacco, destroy it in the court of public opinion.
4
@Paul-A
You may not be aware that federal law explicitly forbids these sort of lawsuits against gun makers. This ruling is going to be overturned. Period.
See, your analogy from guns to other products is simply wrong.
2
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Bob Dylan, 1963
We’re sick of the rain. We’re done with the deluge. Thanks to the family of those little children (how can their parents bear it?) murdered in their schoolhouse, the rain will finally let up.
The NRA brought this on itself. It should have stuck to gun safety and hunting (in the woods) etiquette. Bust out the sunscreen, NRA, you’re gonna need it. Expect no sympathy from the rest of us when you blister and burn.
31
We ground airplanes when they potentially cause deaths. We hold their makers responsible for the safety, even if human user error contributes to the situation.
We regulate seatbelt design in cars to account for the fact that many people don't always use them correctly. We recall cars that have potential design flaws.
We hold cigarette makers liable for cancer deaths, and limit their sales, marketting, etc.
We hold drug makers responsible for the safety of their products, even if people misuse them. We hold food producers liable for food safety.
We hold churches liable when they allow their priests to abuse children.
But, until now, we don't apply these same standards and precautions to guns?
The NRA and the huge gun lobby has held too much power for way too long.
Hopefully this chipping away will be the start of some SANE regulation of these weapons of death.
Guns DO kill people.
54
Good Job, Connecticut Supreme Court. Let's hope the jury upholds the victim's claims.
Of course, "Many gun-rights groups also raised their concerns, including the National Rifle Association, which contended in its brief that allowing the case to move ahead stood to “eviscerate” the gun companies’ legal protections."
Eviscerate their bought-and-paid-for legal protections. YES!
15
No, the law does not need to act dispassionately in this matter.
The massacre of 6 and 7 year olds by a psychotic male with a weapon all but the same as I carried in Vietnam is not a dispassionate matter.
Justice needs to mean something. Holding miscreants accountable for their contribution to evil is a minimum requirement of justice. Doesn't matter whether its a gangbanger executing a rival with a headshot in Baltimore or the guys sitting around a conference room table launching marketing plans to glorify killing people.
Our elected officials, in concert with their agitprop media mouthpieces, have taken us to a quality of life that is, to be kind, somewhat along the vector of Lord of the Flies or A Clockwork Orange.
14
I feel so sorry for the Sandy Hook families, and their slaughtered
babies.
If I were one of those parents I’d probably loose my mind and walk into the firearms manufacturers offices and shoot everyone I could. That’s why I don’t own a firearm, because I know I’m not stable.
Bravo to the families and the lawyers.
I can’t imagine the rage these parents must feel.
Sane Americans stand with you. Even some not so sane Americans (me) stand with you.
14
EXCELLENT!! Finally, something.
The self-righteous, backward thinking in this country may not be so intractable after all.
9
its funny how conservatives and in particular the NRA demand adherence to precedential court rulings when the rulings favor them. Yet when a SCOTUS ruling like Roe v. Wade comes up they are all about chipping away at in with an eye to defanging the ruling they don't like.
13
I agree with your logic 100%, only I would substitute liberal for conservative.
@mike
That's funny considering you liberals have been chipping away at my 2nd amendment rights for decades. "shall not be infringed upon" yet you liberals like to add every conceivable addendum, fee, tax, and prerequisite to it.
@Paul chipping away, even though the number of guns is far in excess of what it has been in the past? What an absurd and illogical statement.
Hope Rush Limbaugh is ready to eat his words. Thank you Connecticut State Supreme Court.
4
Otherwise clear thinking Republicans are so arrogantly certain of their view of the world that they align themselves with NRA and Trump to advance it.
3
My friends, if you are going to sue the gun companies, then you must also sue the car companies and all the beer companies, and sue the skeleton of the boy's mother, and take every penny the father has.
I was sick to my stomach over this atrocity as any sane person would be, but this is a case of "We have to do something - anything" when "something-anything" will not prevent even one more mass shooting.
Read this carefully: Any nut who wants a gun, a snort, a hooker, a card game, underage photos or anything else general society frowns on can get it in less than a day. Pass all the laws you want so you can feel good, sue who you wish to punish "someone," but there are the facts as of right now.
5
@CharlesFrankenberry
So we should have no laws because there will always be lawbreakers? And by the way, many of the industries you mention have indeed faced lawsuits for creating and marketing unsafe products. They are not protected by a law designed to "protect" their industry and only their industry in the way the gun industry is. Forcing gun manufacturers to meet the same standards as other industries is the right thing to do.
12
@CharlesFrankenberry
a gun is not a car
a gun is not a beer
stop with the silly arguments.
1
"Conside your man card reissued". Guess it takes a weapon of mass destruction to make some man- child's feel grown up. I pray for those babies and their teachers who lost their lives due to such insecurity.
7
Great ruling. End this domestic terrorism. The Russian-backed NRA loses another one.
14
Every time one of these stories appears all it really accomplishes is to sell even more AR-15's. Anyone who hasn't bought one yet will be rushing to the store to make sure they stock up before the lawsuits put the manufacturers out of business. Sorry to say, there are far more manufacturers today than there were when Obama started demonizing this rifle. You can buy all the parts from a myriad of sellers and just build your own today. A fully functioning Lower can be bought for as little as $49.00 and that is the only part that requires a background check. Can buy 6 of them tomorrow if it looks like the ban will be coming back.
@GregP
so your idea is that we should stop talking about this? just pretend that its normal for psychotics like lanza to get a gun and go murder dozens of kids?
what is wrong with you people?
also, what a stupid comment. there are not "more manufacturers" now than before obama. obama did not "demonize" anything.
you racist tools just can't get over obama. he was a great president, smart, articulate, thoughtful, careful, and honest, and instead of just being happy we had such a great man as president for a while, you just want to find ways to drag him into every stupid little fantasy you have.
@Aaron King
Um, yes there are many more people building AR's today than there was when this effort to outlaw them began. If you had any exposure to guns you would know that. I can buy entire kits online that have everything but the finished lower. These are available from many different manufacturers. I can then go to any FFL dealer and order the finished lowers, again from a wide variety of sellers, and assemble the rifle myself. Palmetto State Armory if I want low cost parts or Daniel Defense if I want more precisely built parts whatever I choose it is available today. I can even get M-16 bolt carrier groups so in theory I could build it fully automatic if I was willing to break the law. That was not the case when Sandy Hook happened so what has been the result of all the gun grabbing talk besides to increase the supply, and the demand? Finally, nothing in my post should indicate to you I am in any way racist. Your leap to that conclusion says more about you than me. I voted for McCain the first time Obama ran. I voted for Obama over Romney though because of the 47% remark that disrespected our Veterans. Veterans gave more than anyone else and Romney called them Takers. So I voted for Mr. Obama. I do regret that vote today but won't explain why my post is already long enough.
Good. Those who advertise and promote deadly violence, including to those mentally unstable enough to believe it, should be held accountable.
As a gun owner for the past 55 years, who believes in safety and responsibility, I'm abhorred at how the gun companies and NRA have provoked such tragedies, and at how a segment of our society has adopted that message.
Now if we can just get Trump charged for inciting, when he said in a debate "Maybe the Second Amendment crowd can do something about Hillary", it might send a deeper message to that crowd.
28
@Mark MillerThank You,Mark Miller.Your last comment is a poignant one,the offense is somewhat forgotten because Trump excretes craziness and harm everyday.
5
@Jerry Fitzsimmons; so much water under the bridge since the 2016 eleciton cycle and He. Really. Said. That...!
After being ignored and even stonewalled for so very long, kudos to these parents for never giving up!
22
This is wonderful news, and it's about time.
43
The discussion has to be reframed from "gun control" (i.e., paranoid fantasies of the deep state agents and black helicopters coming to take my guns) to the more accurate "public safety" (i.e., I should be able to let my children attend school; I should be able to pray at my mosque/temple/church, and I should be able to attend an open air country music concert without being slaughtered by someone with an assault rifle). Hand guns, however, are the bigger killer of people, particularly those who are poor and not white. Public safety efforts must be inclusive of all weapons that are designed primarily to kill people. I see nothing wrong with rifles for hunters or small hand guns with small clips for self defense. These weapons are less likely to be used to cause the public slaughter that makes the U.S. unique among other developed, democratic states.
21
@William Kramer
How about "shooter control"?
1
Invariably, in any discussion about rational gun control, someone will need to be ridiculous and mention how people die from cars, or knives-and-forks, or other bits of useful daily technology that are never intended to kill people the way that guns are explicitly designed to do.
It really gets old. I don't think we'll ever have progress on saving lives from gun massacres, until gun owners who can't behave like an adult are kept out of the discussion.
I really wish the Sandy Hook parents luck. They could not get any justice for their dead children from Republican lawmakers, but maybe they can get some from holding gun profiteers to account.
47
@Alex Yes, and don't forget the old argument that some people will obtain guns illegally, so the laws are not needed. Huh? We will always have murderers, rapists, burglars, etc., so should we remove those laws as well?
2
Good news!
One is saddened by the fact that we are so behind the Times on the issue that if is scary.
Guns should be banned. Hunting guns should be heavily regulated and allowed with a bunch of well formulated caveats.
We are in 2019 not 1776. The world has moved from the days of the Wild West America.
We have police, coast guard and an army we maintain with our taxes. We do not need guns for self-protection. We delegated our defense to the forces I listed above.
Stop massacres and murders. Now.
24
@Blunt Your whole post is a joke and quite frankly an insult. We don't need guns for self-protection? Tell that to all/any of the victims who died before your precious police arrived. Please explain how their experiences could have been better without having a gun because I 100% disagree. If any of the victims from these types of scenarios had one they would have had a much higher chance of coming out of it alive.
If this was a gun issue and not a people's mentality issue. No-one would be left in America. The number of guns greatly exceed the amount of people.
3
@J NO! Your post is a joke and an absurd tired old argument that does not hold water...As someone much wiser than you once said "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"...sorry to say you are blind to this one. More guns is not the answer, it IS the problem!!
4
@J
Your argument is insulting to the police force for one. They are precious and they are paid well (thanks to our taxes) to do their job well. In Democracies people delegate as you may know. One of the things we delegate is our safety protection to the police (internal) and the army (external).
Your logic is the logic of the Wild West. We no longer live in the Wild West.
If you are insulted by logic I cannot help you there. If you find my message funny, I cannot help you with your sense of humor.
2
We owe a great debt to the Sandy Hook families who suffered their tragedy and are now fighting to prevent gun violence among the rest of us. Thank you!!
43
At long last the tide is turning. Sue them for everything they've got and then some. These manufacturers have blood on their hands as well as the republicans who are in the pocket of the nra.
21
It's very simple. Ban them, as Australia has done.
14
The Constitution is a little more complicated than that. You cannot just simply “ban” them.
3
@Nick
Change the constitution then.
It was written by people who condoned slavery, remember how we changed that?
1
The legitimate uses of explosives for mining, demolition and construction require massive safety protocols. It would be absurd for an explosives manufacturer to trying to boost its sales with the slogan "Consider Your Man Card Reissued." This is where we are with gun manufacturers today.
16
My congratulations to the Sandy Hook parents on this victory. This is a road that none of you ever wanted to travel, but you have traveled it with tenacity, dignity, purpose, and conviction. You have been determined to make the world a safer and better place, if not for your children then for other children and for all Americans. You have done this in the face of the wrath of the gun industry, Alex Jones and the unstable, vindictive maniacs who hang on to his every despicable utterance, and general naysayers who told you this couldn't be done. Thank you for taking a stand for safety, for rationality, and for all Americans' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You are heroes. Thank you all so, so much.
23
the logic behind this lawsuit, will be a disaster. this will allow anyone injured or killed to sue a car manufacturer of sports cars or high performance vehicles. they are marketed for speed and uses not allow by law. this is terrible.
4
@Colby allan
well they could change their advertising to
reflect the truth: how the car is actually useful.
stop selling dreams.
1
@Colby allan And yet those who drive cars must have insurance. Why not those who use guns?
4
@etbk Not only insurance, but they must be registered (the cars) and licensed (the users).
1
Yes, Mr Vogts, 'the shooting “was a tragedy that cannot be forgotten.”' And this lawsuit moving forward is the first step to remembering.
6
Yes! I would say that sense and character prevailed, but it's certainly tough to sleep at night with the blood of young children on your hands. Perhaps in what will be my life-long battle with evil-breeding apathy, it may not take millions of deaths to change millions of minds, as I've dolefully mused in the past.
3
Let’s hope the US Supreme Court overrules.
4
@Edward - Let’s hope the US Supreme Court overrules
"Congress shall make no law respecting guns, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of shooting, or of the shooter; or the right of the people to assemble to shoot, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances of restrictions on these rights."
1
For all 2nd Amendment excuses, it reads "A well regulated Militia...", the missing in reality is the "well regulated" part. It just seems there isn't any!
10
@Fatih - it reads "A well regulated Militia...",
So-called originalists can only read what they want to see.
1
I'm surprised that the gun manufacturer hired legal representation in this case. I would have thought they'd rely on thoughts and prayers.
17
@Mark Gardiner
best response I've seen!
This is as misguided as holding bartenders responsible for a drunk driver's murder victims. Holding gun companies responsible isn't going to change people's behavior, especially when someone who is mentally ill misuses a weapon. This is a band-aid at best...
5
@Rick In many states, bartenders who continue to serve inebriated customers are responsible legally. The law is comprised of minute details and particulars - if you read this article, you will discover that the details of the law allow the plaintiffs to hold the gun company's responsible for reckless advertising.
7
Gun manufacturers say to the government and the courts, “Protect us from accountability in the marketing of our lethal product!”
9
So are we going to allow lawsuits against all auto dealers that manufacture ultra high performance sports cars that appeal to young men and women who then go out and cause fatal accidents? There was nothing defective in the firearm just as there is nothing defective in sports car. So you can argue about whether we need a 400 HP auto or the specific firearm but the root cause of the problem is human stupidity and/or mentally ill humans. The lower court had it right and the Conn. Supreme court issues a political decision. Remington will now file in federal court arguing that the state is in violation of the federal law.
4
@Jonathan What if the car was designed to crash and kill people? What if it was advertised as the deadliest killer on the road?
5
@Jonathan.....If a product is made and sold as a thrill toy, than I think the company who builds and advertises it as such bares some measure of responsibility if that thrill toy is used to kill someone.
1
@Mark Gardiner
You know nothing about gun and how they are advertised. Fine an advertisement by any gun manufacture stating they are being sold to"kill people" and you might have a point--but you will find no such advertising.
1
The NRA says guns give men their man cards? Enough of letting greedy, irresponsible, money-making corporations teaching basic values. Real men don't shoot people they fear; they move through their fear, engage, deescalate, and only if necessary deliver a good, hard punch.
2
Exactly. Weapons of war must be marketed and advertised as weapons of war. These guns are designed to kill hundreds of people indiscriminately. They are appropriate for battlefields filled with enemy warriors. That is how they must be marketed and advertised, not as toys and entertainment.
6
@DB
No military in the world uses AR-15s. It's disingenuous to call them "weapons of war", because they are not.
2
So it's of less concern to GOP-supported gun-rights groups that a classroom of American kindergartners and their teachers were "eviscerated" than that the "protections" gun manufacturers enjoy might be "eviscerated."
We lost a generation to cigarettes, we are losing a generation to gun violence. How can this be OK with the American public? Let's protect the kids, not the gun-makers. Keep up the good work, Sandy Hook parents and friends.
15
Sandy Hook was a shock to me and my classmates who had just celebrated our Newtown High School 50th class reunion. Adam Lanza had no justification for possessing guns. Today's news: a former priest shot and killed. Today's news: a mobster shot and killed.
Why do we read daily of people getting killed with guns? We need to put the same level of safety in gun possession as we have for operating a motor vehicle.
10
If companies selling faulty products can be sued, why not the one selling lethal instruments (weapons) specifically designed to kill 'the more the better'?
19
The thought of 20 six-year old children shot to death in a classroom is so overpowering I could hardly read the article. The brave steadfast conduct of their grieving parents has resulted in a breakthrough against gun advocates,, at long last. May all these parents' efforts on behalf of all Americans be rewarded one- hundredfold.
71
Unfortunately, this is a federal statute, therefore, this is a federal question that can be appealed to SCOTUS. And I think we all know how that will turn out.
10
The federal statue makes exception for state law, which is what this lawsuit is invoking to the Connecticut court. We'll see how this plays out.
7
"...the law needs to be applied dispassionately".
No. This law needs to be repealed, immediately.
The purpose of a military assault rifle is clear: to inflict as much damage as possible on an enemy force to destroy it as quickly as possible whether by direct fire or the psychological toll on the enemy the gruesome wounds inflict on the observers of the effects of these weapons.
If a Remington or a Bushmaster goes out of business because of its production of a product producing carnage on its victims or escalating legal costs, it would be a good thing.
I do not fear the ability of our armed forces (or actual "well-regulated Militias") to obtain all the firepower they require. Putting our citizens at risk for the fantasy of the equivalence between "manliness" and having lethal weapons is feckless in the extreme.
40
@Douglas McNeill
"Military assault rifle" hahaha it's a semi-automatic!
The ignorance of anti-defense activists always astounds me.
2
@asdfj It may astound you, but it does not diminish their point. The day when you can use your technical knowledge to shut down a larger debate is over.
1
We need to undo the "vast protections" afforded to the gun industry under federal law. Why should they not be liable to the same restrictions and regulations that other industries are.
Rather than "banning guns," or taking guns, we should simply treat them the way we treat that other potentially lethal instrument, cars. Gun ownership should require a license, and the weapons should registered and insured. That would be good start to putting an end to a lot of nonsense and fetishism when it comes to these instruments of destruction.
78
@Philip S. Wenz
I like the notion of mandatory insurance on each gun owned. say a million dollars per bullet potentially expended in a crime so a 100 round drum would require a $100 Million dollar policy.
23
It has been said that “every journey begins with a single step”. In the memory of all those who have lost their lives to the AR-15, let this step be the first of many.
36
Why aren’t assault rifles sold only to the military? It is simply a weapon of war. It doesn’t belong in the hands of civilians, even if they were trained to use them.
53
@Michael Talbert But what else are people supposed to shoot refrigerators full of thermite with???
2
This victory could not be more well-earned. The Sandy Hook parents are the most brilliant and courageous group of people the in country and they will never stop until they affect lasting change. My warmest and most heartfelt congratulations to them!
61
This is such great news and a lesson for advocates for change in this issue and so many others: change takes time, patience, and ingenuity. When one can find a good legal hook it also takes creative and persistent lawyers. Take a bow.
17
The irony that the NRA is still more concerned with “gun companies’ legal protections” than protecting the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of an entire nation still leaves me dumbfounded.
This great news, not only for the families of the victims and survivors of Sandy Hook, not only the families of the victims and survivors of the countless other tragedies related to “legally acquired” arms, but for the entire United States.
33
This is big, and long overdue. Time to reduce our options to bolt action rifles, double barrel shotguns and small revolvers. No concealed carry. Hunting and home defense only.
14
If companies that manufacture cigarettes need to pay for their misdeeds, gun companies should be required to do the same.
39
I have nothing but appreciation for the Sandy Hook parents (and their legal representation) for their tenacity in pursuing lawsuits like this one, the case against Alex Jones, etc.
The massacre that claimed their children occurred more than six years ago. It can't have been easy to have progressed this far at this slow a pace. It's unfathomable that the process takes so long. They fortitude, and their determination to channel their grief into something constructive, something worthy of their departed loved ones, is inspiring.
82
What state interest, what social justice does the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act serve? What a reprehensible piece of legislation enacted by a GOP controlled Congress and signed by a GOP president. Yes, folks, elections matter. And money in the political system corrodes.
89
This is a victory for LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
61
The so-called conservatives complain about socialism. The law they championed to protect gun manufacturers is a prime example of socialism -- a government benefit for a particular industry. It seems they only cry socialism when legislation is to help the average citizen. Legislation helping an industry is no problem for them.
150
YES. I don't know if this will stick (hopefully it does) but someone / something needs to be held liable. Manufactures. Owners/stores that sell weapons. Gun owners that don't keep their weapons locked.
The "people kill people" argument worked 20 years ago. No one can confront this new evidence and trend and have the same opinion. We regulate benadryl and sudafed, cars....and can ground entire fleets of planes. At some point, something has to be done and the gun industry has no one to blame but itself... for doing nothing, staying silent and proposing no solutions until the problem became so awful that people could no longer look away.
41
@Pam
What new evidence or trend? Gun violence has been going down consistently for the past 20 years.
2
@Chris Actually, evidence shows gun violence is on the rise in the past few years. Suicide by gun also continues to increase. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-death-statistics-cdc-study-says-gun-deaths-are-on-the-rise-after-years-of-decline/
19
@Susi Only because suicide by bow-and-arrow is a bit tricky.
"The law needs to applied dispassionately". Agree. Applied just like it was to the cigarette companies.
36
Congratulations to the Sandy Hook parents for this ruling-
now the rest of us may be able to witness the changes the country needs.
Can't wait to see the internal memos and emails on the AR-15 advertising, probably as big if not bigger than the Oxy crisis.
50
Indeed, marketing campaigns have consequences. Some tangential although obvious. It's like idolizing the Marlboro Man to get young men hooked on highly addictive nicotine delivery vehicles. Vapes and of course, firearms are right in there as well.
21
As a father of a six year old boy, my heart goes out to parents who lost their child in such senseless violence. If you are one of those parents, please know that your good work has made a difference. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for fighting for this. I am sorry for your loss.
487
@Walt - Thank you for your kind words to these bereaved families. Even if they do not read this, it makes a difference, especially considering the vitriol that has been hurled at these parents over the years by thoughtless, cruel, and disturbed people. Kindness is one of the many things that is going to make this world better.
I wish you and your little boy a lifetime of happiness, safety, and peace at home, at school, and everywhere you may travel.
26
How strange that no one disputes the necessity of carrying auto insurance, yet still we struggle over gun liability. Cars can be deadly; I’ve heard guns can be too.
The phrase ‘well-regulated’ is ensconced in the Second Amendment, something gun worshippers conveniently overlook. And yet we regulate cars far more stringently than guns: No one is allowed to drive without a license, plates, registration, or insurance. Nor should anyone be able to pull a trigger without these either.
There will always be outliers; some people will never purchase car insurance or keep their licenses current. Nor will any gun regulation prevent all killings. But bad guys with guns don’t kill any more than bad guys with cars do. People who lose control—all of us, at some point—kill, with both cars and guns, and it’s time to treat these products the same way.
115
@R Mandl That isn't what well-regulated means in the second amendment. Look it up sometime.
Additionally, you can't sue Toyota because someone runs over your family member in the road, so why would we allow people to sue gun manufacturers for simply making a product and selling it? It is literally no different.
3
I'm for this. Let's regulate guns like we do cars. Anyone can own a car without registering it if they never intend on using it on public property. There's no limit to the amount of cars you can buy in a month. There's no limit to how fast a car can technically go, and the limit to how fast it actually goes is only if you're using it out in public. A car that's legal in one state is legal in the next. Nobody cares if you buy a car and give it away to someone else. The car laws are pretty similar throughout the entire country. Nobody regulates carrying capacity of a car. Anyone can make a car for use on their own private land. You don't need fingerprints to buy a car. You don't need insurance to own a car or to even use it if you're not using it in public. Nobody tries to regulate cars based off cosmetics. I mean, the list goes on and on. By all means, regulate guns like cars, but be careful what you wish for.
1
@Rob
Does Toyota market their cars as ideal for running over pedestrians? Maximizing their deadly potential? If that was the intent of the gun manufacturers' marketing, stated directly or not, then the plaintiff's have a case.
19
Fantastic! Now let's put some money towards advertising the effects of gunshot wounds, just like they do with tobacco. If people knew the damage (we never think about the survivors), that could provoke a groundswell of support for gun safety measures.
50
It is not the weapon manufacturers, it is the user of the weapon. What's next, stop selling knifes, cars, trucks, etc. There are a lot of items sold that may cause injury. People need to take responsibility for their actions. I agree with ensuring weapons are purchased by responsible people.
4
@G G
In this case, the issue isn't selling the weapon, it's using advertising to sell the weapon as a weapon of murder. There's a clear difference between selling a truck (your example) by promising dependable transportation and selling one by promising you can run people over with it. Factually, it seems like the ads cited in the story are much closer to the latter.
30
@G G cars are a great example of how to manage risk and liability. People have to licence and insure their cars. Drivers have to be trained and undergo testing and periodic review of their license. If a particular car is particularly dangerous, manufacturers have to do something or be sued. Let's do all that with guns.
4
@G G
Cara, trucks, (transportation) knives (for eating/carving and in close proximit can kill). Swords, guns, cannons, and bombs, grenades only have one purpose and that is to kill. You argument does not logically stand.
3
Finally, some progress. It cannot be that the entire system is corrupt to the hilt (though it often feels like it).
29
What other industry enjoys such broad immunity from responsibility for their products? It’s about time the gun manufacturers are called on to account.
As a Connecticut resident, I applaud the court’s decision.
193
@Francine Larson Um... All of them. No other company has to deal with being sued because someone misused their product. Nobody sues GM when there is a terrorist attack using trucks to run people over, nobody sued the manufacturer of pressure cookers after the Boston Marathon Bombing, and nobody should be able to sue Remington for selling legal weapons. It's insanity.
3
@Rob
Let's see now...what else can a gun be used for? Cleaning the carpet? Cutting vegetables? Drying hair? Ironing clothes? Mowing lawns? ...hmm.ah, found one: intimidating & instilling terror.
GM creates cars for the purpose of transport.
Pressure cookers are meant for cooking.
Kitchen knives are made for culinary activities (and I know, they too can be wrongfully used).
Guns are meant for the SOLE PURPOSE of killing.
291
Millions upon millions of firearms in the US do nothing than occasionally damage paper and wood each year.
I'm all for improving current firearm laws but it seem reductive to say guns are solely for killing. They designed solely to kill. Correct. 100%. But there's a missing component in the equation and that's the person holding the gun. We need to be more thoughtful during that process.
Adam Lanza's mother was completely blind to her child's profound mental illness and showered him with firearms via straw purchases. That's the crux of the issue regarding this specific tragedy. Not ads.
1
It's about time the courts did something right wrt gun violence. But there's still a long, long way to go to make our country safe. We need to figure out in a collaborative and constructive way how to establish strong, common sense gun laws. What normal person doesn't want that? Once this president and his cronies (including the NRA and Russia) are out of the way, this goal can be achieved in a bi-partisan way. Let's go for it. Make America safe again.
20
I still don't understand how a manufacturer is at all responsible for how someone uses their product. Just like a knife it can be used responsibly or irresponsibly, but it is the user who is responsible for their actions.
6
@Dylan,
but the primary use of the knife is to be a tool, not a weapon. just like the primary use of a car is transportation. they CAN be used as weapons but no automaker or even knife maker advertises it for those purposes.
14
@Dylan And when atrocities are repeatedly committed with a product, it is appropriate, in a free society, that victims can hold manufacturers responsible in a court of law.
19
Almost willing to put money on the notion that a Remington R-15 has only been used once, max twice in mass shootings. I’d say that’s a good track record out of hundreds of thousands sold. (There have been other shootings with Armalite-style rifles but the manufacturer is usually Bushmaster as these are the cheapest in this category.)
4
Count me among the many who are thrilled to see state courts pushing back on Republican dogma pertaining to guns, presidential pardons, climate change, taxes, immigration, the works.
After decades of bellyaching about "states' rights," Republicans had better keep their mouths shuts when their anti-federalism beliefs come back to bite them. "States' rights" are about to put Paul Manafort and Alex Jones in jail, further incarcerate the Trump inner circle, and finally hold gun manufacturers accountable for their greed. If this isn't poetic justice I don't know what is.
211
@Solaris Let’s not forget, the recent judicial decision is about the right to sue. Liability lies in the hands of twelve jurors without reasonable doubt. Are YOU certain beyond reasonable doubt the gun or the manufacturer caused innocent deaths? Mine are just laying there and haven’t killed anybody.
Red, Purple or Blue, rural or city, everyday experience with automobiles indicates that educated, licensed, insured, conservatively policed drivers are WAY less likely to endanger themselves or others than unprepared, unlicensed, uninsured scoff-laws suddenly off on a murderous ‘lark’.
States should license and regulate firearms AT LEAST to the extent they regulate motor vehicles. They should stop playing the Russian Roulette Game of Open-Sales-Open-Carry-Anywhere and improve the chances their neighbourhoods benefit.
Consider one benefit: if YOU injure ME with an insured automobile, an insurance company pays the hospital bills. Why should I -- let alone government emergency services -- pay for injuries inflicted by some perverse shooter's firearms? Let the perverse one’s insurance company take the beating and, thereby, bring some 'free market forces' to bear. Market forces: remember those?
Nobody in this context is saying "Do without cars or trucks." Nobody (in my household at least) is saying "Do without guns". Just get real. The NRA's open-armed approach to gun violence is not working. It will not work in times of zombie apocalypse either. It is time to get real, America. Education, Innovation and Cooperation are the way forward, not civil war. It is time to get real.
272
Totally agree. I’ve argued the same points - 1 license to use (knowledge and accountability), 2 - register item (more accountability and revenue), 3 - insurance, because it can be a dangerous weapon (I’m talking about the car, or truck....), for years.
35
@Wm Conelly Insurance is also a great angle.... there should be a tax on guns or manufacturing to cover hospital bills.
29
@Wm Conelly
Your analogy falls apart once you realize cars and driving are not Constitutional rights.
Carry your thinking one step further into absurdity: Would you put up with insurance and training requirements before being able to exercise your Fourth Amendment rights against search and seizure? How about your right to speech?
If you don't like the Second Amendment, roll up your sleeves and get it repealed.
4
Every comparison with other nations makes it as plain as day that the number of weapons available to the public increases the incidence of gun violence, including the approximate 30,000 gun suicides a year. If we view gun violence as a public health issue, which we should, then this route via the courts may eventually echo the success we've had in reining in the tobacco industry.
39
@Gerald And the automobile industry as well. Treating automobile related deaths and injuries as a public health issue led to serious reforms and new safety features in cars and on our highways, significantly reducing fatalities and injury. Of course this is a public health issue, and of course it should be studied, and the role of gun manufacturers in promoting unsafe use and gun culture (and suppressing life saving technologies) should be taken seriously.
9
@Gerald I know how to stop all those suicides. Let's just pass another law against them. Let's forget about looking for signs of problems that could have prevented the act in the first place.
Perhaps we should take a step back and consider the legitimate purposes of civilian firearms (regardless of the 2nd amendment, which was intended to protect against a tyrannical government). Hunting, they say. Perhaps that means rifles and shotguns, but certainly not assault weapons. Target shooting: revolvers and automatic pistols. Certainly not assault weapons. Home protection. Again, a handgun (and only one) is needed. Certainly not assault weapons. Which leaves what legitimate purpose for these weapons of war?
As citizens, we need to communicate with our legislators and continue to press them. For the sanity of our nation.
59
@Frances Drake No, we are done taking steps backward.
But yes, this has happened before. Remember when Dominos used to promise 30 minute delivery? Someone was hit by a car, Dominos accepted liability and canceled the promotion. Because it was a *direct* result of their advertising and drive to increase sales. Same here.
3
@Frances "(regardless of the 2nd amendment, which was intended to protect against a tyrannical government)" Hmmmmm..... maybe we should take the 2nd into account. Funny how you advocate for the firearm used in 95% of gun violence yet against the one seldom used which exactly dovetails with the 2nd amendment. Semi auto hand guns and hand guns in general have little use for anything except murder, and that's what they are used for, yet you are ok with them, I wonder why.
@Pam: Domino was not sued in state or federal court for ENCOURAGING vehicular homicide with their ad.
As a result of their canceling the promotion….pizza and pizza delivery were not "banned" because "they can ultimately lead to death in a car crash".
1
The firearms used at Sandy Hook belonged to Lanza’s mother, who paid with her own life for the elementary mistake of leaving her firearms unsecured in the first place, and especially in a home where a severely disturbed individual lived. Her negligence was primarily responsible for 26 deaths. Would the manufacturer of the automobile Lanza drove to the school be liable if he had used it to run down 26 people? As much as one grieves for the slain and their families, this is a terrible ruling that may eventually have far-reaching and unintended product liability consequences for many industries.
2
@Larry
The answer to your question is YES, if the manufacturer of the automobile had advertised it as a great way to run down pedestrians.
The point is that you can't advertise your legal product to be used in an illegal act. This is nothing new in the law.
132
@Larry
The auto manufacturer probably did not advertise the vehicle as a device designed to inflict injury and death.
7
So as you indicate products cannot be advertised to be used in an illegal act, which is why this verdict will be ultimately overturned.
1
NYT- thank you for using the term Gun Violence Prevention Groups versus the more typical, and inaccurate, description Gun Control Groups in this story to describe those of us working to keep our communities and families safe. Words matter.
158
This is great news. If we can demand Purdue explain their marketing of opioids, then it follows we should be allowed to shine a light on how the gun industry markets their products.
86
@Anine
One difference between Purdue and the gun companies.
The gun companies were selling product to people who could be mentally unbalanced like Adam Lanza or who bought it with the intention of doing harm to others.
Purdue was selling it to doctors who are supposed to be mentally stable and supposedly whose first rule is do no harm.
I'm not sure why those who commit crimes with guns against others should pay for their activity while those whose crime was committed with a prescription pad should go free.
5
@Steve Adam Lanza didn't buy the gun. His mother did.
1
@Steve
The point is: neither should.
Wherever one comes down on the debate of gun control, what is the objection to requiring "gun companies to turn over internal communications that they have fiercely fought to keep private [that could] provide a revealing — and possibly damaging — glimpse into how the industry operates"?
If gun manufactures have nothing to hide in how they market their weapons, then they have no reason to fear their strategies run afoul of state and federal law and the concept of "negligent entrustment."
Like Big Tobacco, Big Oil, or Big Pharma, let's shine a little light on the Big Guns.
73
I am not hopeful that this is the beginning of the end for the gun lobby and the NRA.
But I am praying that it is.
27
Could this decision be the first chink in the NRA's and gun maker's armor? Could this possibly be the first glimmer of sanity in this battle against gun killings in this country?
Do we dare hope that someday, we won't have to fear going to school, the movies, the mall, the concert, the street and that weapons of war are confined to war?
Oh, I forget: the republicans and their newly bought Supreme Court will doubtless find for the death dealers when they appeal.
12
@George Dietz If they're going to trial on the basis of a state law, and the state supreme court has ruled on it, I'm not sure that an appeal to the US Supreme Court would get anywhere.
This is a victory for more than these families, it is a victory for all Americans who favor a safe and secure country. The immoral protection of gun manufacturers only emboldens them to sell weapons of death with no responsibility for the consequences.
21
Great news! Now watch the NRA minions in Congress scramble to cover for them. Keep the pressure on, once a Democrat is back in the White House next election we’ll finally take care of this festering problem.
9
@Rad The stacked courts will make that difficult unfortunately :(
The second amendment has nothing to do with the issue of negligent and irresponsible advertising and sales of weapons. Great strategy to hold the gun industry responsible. How do those people sleep at night knowing they sell products that kill our babies?
64
I always thought the Second Amendment described the arming of militias in the absence of a standing army. It certainly didn’t stop The outlawing of Tommy guns during the Al Capone era and it shouldn’t stop outlawing military weapons designed solely to kill humans.
7
Way too long overdue and represents a step forward to the majority of Americans who favor responsible gun control.
14
thank God something finally happened
8
What a glorious day!
Thank you to the courageous plaintiffs and their persistent attorneys. Eventually we will win over the gun manufacturers and the NRA.
Let the discovery begin!
21
Good. Let.the rest of the country see what we liberals know is the game being played here. We'll see how much thsy protect gun makers and the NRC then.
5
Blessings to these families who have not stopped until gun manufactures are held accountable.
36
From the article: "The law does allow exceptions for sale and marketing practices that violate state or federal laws and instances of so-called negligent entrustment, in which a gun is carelessly given or sold to a person posing a high risk of misusing it."
If this is accurate, heck yes, they have a case, and a darn good one, despite what the Remington flak says at the end of the article.
Go get 'em, plaintiffs; it's time for accountability.
12
@John D.: Adam Lanza was not given a gun, nor was he sold any gun -- though he was of age, 20).
He murdered his mother, in her own bed, in order to get the key to her gun safe -- it is easy to imagine he asked for it, and she said "no".
It defies reason that she gave her son all her guns, and then sat there while he murdered her.
Thank you Sandy Hook families for fighting for common sense gun control laws and holding gun manufacturers accountable.
28
Finally a victory for common sense! These weapons of war should never have been marketed to the public. The vicious circle of the NRA buying corrupt politicians passing legislation giving more power to the NRA and its lobbyists so they can buy more influence has to stop.
6
RE: using slogans like “Consider your man card reissued.”
RE: “The weapon used by Mr. Lanza had been legally purchased by his mother, Nancy Lanza, whom he also killed.”
So are they saying that Nancy Lanza was influenced by the advertising, or that Adam Lanza saw the ads and influenced his mother to buy the gun, or that out the collection of guns owned by Nancy Lanza that he chose the one he used because of the advertising.
I don't see how this will not be appealed to the SCOTUS (Supreme Conservatives of the United States) where this court's ruling will will be struck down which conflates the 2nd and 1st Amendment as "Congress shall make no law respecting guns, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of shooting, or of the shooter; or the right of the people to assemble to shoot, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances of restrictions on these rights."
4
It's well past time that America's merchants of death be held accountable for their products, like any other manufacturer. Bravo to the Sandy Hook families!
14
At last, some good news on the "front page" of the NY Times.
These weapons of war have no business being for sale in the US. That they are sold as weapons of masculinity -- yes, you, too, can massacre your fellow Americans! -- makes them even more toxic if that is possible.
Let's hope that this lawsuit puts Remington and the others who have promoted this violence not only into bankruptcy, but also out of business.
6
Won't this be appealed? What happens if/when it reaches the Supreme Court which could look more broadly interpret the protections of the 2005 federal legiuslation?
3
The Democrats in the House need to vote to repeal gun maker immunity from suit.
13
Children will want them
Mothers supply them
As long as your killers are heroes
And all the media
Will fiddle while Rome burns
Acting like modern time Neros
Prevention is better than cure
Bad apples affecting the pure
You'll gather your senses, I'm sure
Then agree to
Melt the guns
Melt the guns
Melt the guns
And never more to fire them
Melt the guns
Melt the guns
Melt the guns
And never more desire them
4
“Consider your man card reissued.” To think such a creature would possess a firearm is irreconcilable with sanity.
5
@Olivia Mcfarland: it' just stupid ad lingo.
We also have beer ads telling people it is fun to drink and party.
We have ads for cars, even though there are FAR more car deaths than gun deaths.
The ads for cars say they make you sexy, sporty, attractive to women.
What if Lanza had instead stolen his mom's big truck or big honkin' SUV and drove it to Sandy Hook elementary at recess and RUN OVER 20 children until they were dead?
Would the same folks be banning big trucks and SUVs?
1
And the pendulum just moved to the left.
1
What are”arms”? Does the Second Amendment allow me a RPG, anti-aircraft guns, a 50 cal machine gun?
For literally more than a century we knew the answer was “no”. Weapons not reasonably related to self defense or a well regulated militia were not “arms” you could “bear”. Enter the culture wars.
For reasons I can’t fathom it has been an article of near religious fanaticism for a large swath of Baby Boomers that we should now live in a world where destabilized lunatics can legally buy an assault weapon just as lethal as an RPG with no apparent “self defense” application.
9
This is one step in the right direction, but what we need to do going forward is repeal that abomination of a 'Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act' passed in 2005, and let it go the way of the 'Defense of Marriage Act' of '96.
Times do change, and we need a Congress willing to act accordingly.
13
There are only two entities responsible for this horrible crime; the perpetrator and his mother. The son, from all public information had serious mental health issues and probably would have been found to be incompetent to be held responsible, therefore the mother, acting as a "straw man" buyer for her son is the only reason this tragedy ever took place. To try to shift blame elsewhere is just politics.
60
@Tinman333
No there are several entities responsible, including a Republican/conservative establishment that has gutted mental healthcare in this country over the last 30 years, which left the perpetrator with no real help for his serious problems. Just because this is an indirect cause of this tragedy doesn't mean it isn't a cause. It certainly is, and to ignore it means more of these tragedies will occur. We need to fix our mental health system so that these families can get the help they need for these troubled individuals before they get their hands on a gun and go on a shooting spree. Sadly conservatives would prefer to cut these programs to lower the taxes on the super rich.
76
@Tinman333
Combat weapons such as the Ar-15 are not compatible with anything resembling self defence on the street or in the home. End of story. Any advertising attempting to circumvent this incompatibility by stressing the 'masculinity' of such battlefield weapons must be deemed illegal and subject to financial liability.
99
From Escola, written by justice Traynor: Even if there is no negligence, however, public policy demands that responsibility be fixed wherever it will most effectively reduce the hazards to life and health inherent in defective products that reach the market. It is evident that the manufacturer can anticipate some hazards and guard against the recurrence of others, as the public cannot. Those who suffer injury from defective products are unprepared to meet its consequences. The cost of an injury and the loss of time or health may be an overwhelming misfortune to the person injured, and a needless one, for the risk of injury can be insured by the manufacturer and distributed among the public as a cost of doing business. It is to the public interest to discourage the marketing of products having defects that are a menace to the public. If such products nevertheless find their way into the market it is to the public interest to place the responsibility for whatever injury they may cause upon the manufacturer, who, even if he is not negligent in the manufacture of the product, is responsible for its reaching the market. However intermittently such injuries may occur and however haphazardly they may strike, the risk of their occurrence is a constant risk and a general one. Against such a risk there should be general and constant protection and the manufacturer is best situated to afford such protection.
25
I'm a gun owner and this is good news.
974
@mark Thank you, Mark. Your speaking out as a gun owner about this in a supportive manner is much appreciated.
30
@mark
Correction.
You are a gun owner in Montana.
You do not live in a state that will gladly relieve you of your Second Amendment right.
And the children in your state are - largely - brought up to respect, and handle, firearms from an early age.
1
Good on you Mark!
15
This is yet another piece of anecdotal evidence demonstrating that the political/societal beliefs of the majority of voters is moving leftward, away from the Republican party. The incredible & increasing level of economic inequality, the abuse of the system by the rich and powerful, the absolutism of the right-wing in defending rights to the detriment of society as a whole, all of these actions are being rejected by an increasing majority of voters. It started in 2018 with a repudiation of Trump. It will continue through 2020
4
Guns are protected by the second amendment for the explicit purpose of doing bodily harm to other people. Not hunting. If a gun manufacturer cannot market its products in line with the constitution, we are living in clown world. Beyond that, will this apply to all inanimate objects? Knives are marketed for their ability to cut through the flesh of an animal. That animal can be a human right?
2
@John No one is marketing knives as weapons of death, unlike the manufacturers of AK rifles. AND, it is illegal to use a knife as a weapon of death or bodily harm to a human, not an animal. Your argument fails.
@John - You need to re-read the Second Amendment, because that’s definitely not “explicitly” stated.
2
@John Knives aren't marketed by their manufacturers as military-grade death machines that will increase your "man cred". These guns are, and public safety issues aside, the manufacturer should at least be held responsible for that.
1
Glad to see that while several judges have rejected this lawsuit out of hand, a state court will be seeing it go to trial. Hopefully next we’ll start to see lawsuits against automotive makers for making cars that go too fast; civilians have no need for engines that produce over 500 HP. Their marketing obviously appeals to the male fantasy of driving a race car, and thousands die every year due to irresponsible driving in machines that civilians just shouldn’t have access to.
1
@Doug If the car maker is advertising the car in language that promotes aggressive driving and reckless speeding? Yes. Why do you think there are little disclaimers on car commercials about professional drivers on closed tracks... to make sure they are being responsible about their message. Alcohol brands do the same when showing people out drinking their beer or liquor... "Drink Responsibly." Gun makers should not have a protected right to advertise irresponsibly. I think they would not enjoy this protection if we didn't have a deeply dysfunctional divide over firearms in our culture.
11
Nothing in Remington’s advertisement ever suggested that the rifle could or should be used to commit a massacre. Appealing to masculinity isn’t a call to violence, as some readers here might suggest.
1
"...the law needs to be applied dispassionately."
Good luck with that. Second Amendment absolutists are some of the most passionate people I've ever encountered.
14
Every bullet made for every gun may be one that has the potential to be used on one or more of our innocent loved ones. The gun companies have held us hostage just as the NRA and their supporters.
Congratulations to the Court. Congratulations to those who have taken this grave issue to the courts.
As a Wisconsin mom and grandma who stood with my 10 year old grandson in DC last year, along with the thousands and thousands there and watching, I felt the pain of the Parkland kids. We have felt pain after pain through the years, pain of those shootings all across our land. The Newtown folks have been steadfast because of their pain and their love, including love for us who have not had to suffer as they have. They have unselfishly tried to help us in the best ways they could, including taking this to the courts.
Now, let us proceed for justice deserved. The door may have been opened. We will all continue to walk with them through this journey.
109
Lawyer Vogts says "...the law needs to be applied dispassionately". Perhaps the law needs to be changed, if such law protects a company or manufacturer from responsibility for causing injury. A dispassionate view of the law would look closely at the manufacture and marketing of a product that results in harm or death. Whether the manufacturer is making guns, cars, airplanes, drugs- any product marketed to the public, when their product causes public harm they should be held accountable.
27
Too soon? The attorney for Remington, Mr. Vogts, seems to be saying that 5 years is not enough time to develop enough objectivity to consider the law surrounding this suit "dispassionately."
We have established a judicial system for the purpose of dispassionately addressing injustice. Injustice will always stir passions and we have mechanisms, structures, and practices that encourage reflection and consideration. That this has wended its way through the courts for several years is proof of that. He should be sanctioned by the court for implying that the Connecticut Supreme Court is not up to the task of considering the facts of this case on its own merits rather than through the lens of emotions.
14
We need to do right by those children and get these weapons of war off our streets. Other countries have been able to do this after gun tragedies. Why can’t we?
I know the answer to the question. As long as our Congress is bought and paid for by special interests, our children will continue to live in a shooting gallery.
Is that what we really want?
104
Weapons will never be off our street. If criminals can't get them legally they will get them illegally. And the black market will thrive because of it. Its just like the war on drugs.
@Dylan The problem is that there are too many weapons on the street because we don't have the RIGHT laws in place.
a) Laws to hold gun owners responsible for guns they don't properly secure/store
b) Laws to prevent guns owners from selling or giving away guns to people with no background checks
c) Laws to require all gun sales/trades be documented so that guns that end up being used to commit crimes can be traced and gun owners held accountable for breaking any applicable laws such as allowing firearms into the hands of criminals
Will these changes prevent all gun crimes? NO.
Will it make a big difference? YES
If it saves me, you, or your family, then it is worth it!
9
Sometimes humans are like fish in water. We accept the status quo without seeing the reality. Weapons designed to mow down prey have no place in civil society. If used for hunting, automatic weapons null the whole concept of sportsmanship. Just because we have the technology and expertise to make something (like large magazine automatic weapons), it does the justify the cost to human life. And, making money and profits should not, by itself, justify any product.
33
"The ruling validates the novel strategy lawyers for the victims’ families used as they sought to find a route around the vast protections in federal law that guard gun companies from litigation when their products are used to commit a crime."
The fact that the industry has these "vast protections" in the first place is an abomination. This ruling is the first good news we've had in a while. There's a reason they're so fiercely protecting those internal comms.
295
@LAM
elect democrats and solve the problem through voting.
3
Yes. The real question is why that 2005 statute is constitutional. Congress shouldn’t be allowed to sign away my right to petition the courts.
2
If one "dispassionately" considers that the company advertising of a combat weapon was quite obviously and specifically tailored to non-combatants with masculinity issues, the company or companies behaved irresponsibly and should be held accountable. Conflating "manhood" with lethality by a gun manufacturer is beyond the pale of any human decency.
545
@SDM
This.
But, these rulings need to be careful to not go down a slippery slope. ( I do 100% agree that if the marketing is targeting these emotionally compromised individuals, they should been held accountable. )
At the same time, we as a nation still need to address better background screening of those that purchase guns. Including mandatory training.
Guns for sport shooting, hunting and, dare I say it, personal protection are fine.
Guns so you can, "feel like a man". Big red flag.
12
@Chad
At one time I would have agreed with you. I grew up hunting. But at 19, I realized that no longer took any pleasure in murdering innocent wild creatures. (Nor, since the neolithic agricultural revolution, do people need to hunt to feed themselves.)
So, why was I hunting? I had been taught that it was "fun." But, in fact, it wasn't.
41
@SDM
fascinating!
I always thought there is no more need for guns now that one can buy prescription drugs to augment someone's lacking masculinity. Drugs are less expensive and more effective.
7
This is excellent news. Finally, the manufacturers of weapons that are designed to kill many people as quickly as possible will held responsible. Bear in mind that 26 people were killed in Sandy Hook including 20 first-grade children. That kind of carnage is incomprehensible. It must stop and this may be a first step.
381
Unfortunately, John, the courts have become so politicized that I am not optimistic that the ruling will be able to withstand numerous legal appeals by the Gun Manufacturers.
2
@DCJ
from a retired attorney -- This is great news because state Supreme Court decisions are the top of the line for decisions made . . .for that state. There is no appeal unless defendants here attempt a Hail Mary likely to fail to get SCOTUS to take the case on 2nd amendment grounds.
That said, a CT Supreme Court decision only sets the law for one state/CT. Guess what FL and OK and TX state Attorneys General are doing right now? With hired outside expert lawyers combing through their state's comparable "consumer protection" laws to see if they have on the books what CT law says in this case.
Red States AGs that find comparable state law will tell their governors. Governors will set legislative emergency agenda(s) or recall not-in-session legislators to add one sentence to their state law: "None of the above provisions shall apply to guns or rifles or weapons of any type, or ammunition, when used as designed and built by a manufacturer or modified by the end user." Protecting both the mfrs and the mentally ill who are their consumers - consumers of both targeted messaging and assault-style killing machines.
Federal law already says that Blue States cannot prohibit Red State citizens who lawfully obtain and possess a weapon to cross state lines with that weapon. So kudos for CT and we're not better until the Congress changes federal level protections for weapons manufacturers.
3
I have always thought that the the way to pursue the gun manufacturers was to force them out of the shadows. Whether in court, public hearings or congressional testimony the chance to place their callousness on display would be the first step to reform as it was with big tobacco.
349
Ever since the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce Act put gun industry corporations above the US Constitution- those harmed by guns have been mostly barred from holding gun manufacturers responsible for the harm caused by their products. No other industry or corporations have been placed above the law. It’s time for politicians like Bernie Sanders who campaign against corporate power to apologize for voting for the PLCA and work to pass some new legislation so that the gun industry can once again be held legally responsible for its products under the US Constitution.
4
RE: " restricts lawsuits against gun sellers and makers by granting industrywide immunity from blame when one of their products is used in a crime. "
Sell to the good guys and the bad guys. Supplying both sides with impunity. Isn't that an arms dealer greatest wish?
16
Finally a common sense ruling. These families deserve better than what they’ve gotten from this country so far. Between Alex Looney-Tunes Jones and his rabid followers, and Wayne Lapierres ridiculous ‘ good guy with a gun speech’ this is long overdue.
683
@M E R
The only argument here is that their advertising compelled violence.
Haven't we been through all this already, with "devil's music" or "violent video games?"
Advertising is to blame for this, really?
3
@asdfj Actually, yes, because the NRA/Gun Makers (which is the same thing) scared Congress into laws that prevent victims of mass violence from holding them responsible in any other way. So if this is the "back door" into one way to try to stop some of the senseless gun violence in the US, I'm all for it.
24
@asdfj The difference is that you can't kill someone with music or a video game, but you can kill someone with a gun.
12
This is big. Gun companies and importers need to face liability for making and selling unsafe weapons that fall into the hands of bad actors who are able to use them for bad acts. This includes biometric safeties, control of sales, shipping security, an effective national gun registry and permit process, total inclusion of all transactions, magazine capacity, design that thwarts conversion to 'automatic' fire, caliber and casings of bullets and their sale and transfer..
101
@Bill This includes due diligence on factory/importer sales to distributors and those distributors further down the chain to retail sales outlets. Hold the producers to negligence costs if the sales chain at any level is negligent.
1
Kudos to those who follow in the footsteps of the anti-tobacco lobby. The Marlboro Man was a fixture of my generation and everybody who wanted to be "cool" smoked. Now, among my generation, it's considered what it always was--a filthy and expensive addiction. I doubt this country will ban guns in my lifetime, but I applaud those who understand the impact that advertising plays in promoting societal ills. And in this case, death.
528
@SLP
Agreed that it is unlikely to see effective gun control in our lifetime. But, like many other deep, hard problems, it is time work for the good of the future generations and to start right now.
5
@SLP
Interesting aside related to the Marlboro man:
Five men who claimed to have appeared in Marlboro-related advertisements — Wayne McLaren, David McLean, Dick Hammer, Eric Lawson[23] and Jerome Edward Jackson, aka Tobin Jackson — died of smoking-related diseases, thus earning Marlboro cigarettes, specifically Marlboro Reds, the nickname "Cowboy killers"
6
After the case is tried and the gun makers lose, after they lose all the appeals, no matter what is revealed and proven and upheld, once the case finally reaches the United States Supremee Court, ultimately the five Republican "Justices" will, no matter what twisted logic is required, find a way to let gun the manufacturers completely off the hook.
15
@Bald Eagle then let's hope there's lots of factual press before that happens so support for these inadequate gun policies at the state and federal levels can be discussed thoroughly.
13
@Bald Eagle Even though you're probably right, let's wait to see if the Chief Justice of the United States is *really* one of the five.
@Bald Eagle If that ever happens ,we may have civil unrest.
Although I very much side with the victims' families, I don't know whether gun manufacturers ought to be held accountable for events like the massacre at Sandy Hook. Gut the people to decide that are jurors, not judges. Now a jury of citizens from the community will be able to hear the evidence and make their voices heard. As should be. This is a victory for our system of justice as much as for the plaintiffs.
6
@JJM
We should take great care to hold individuals and companies alike accountable for their actions and not the actions of others. I fault the gunman and his mother in this case for their choices and actions related to purchasing and using this weapon to slaughter innocents.
Like the tobacco industry and the pharmaceutical industry, however, the gun manufacturers may have acted improperly in marketing their product to the public without full disclosure of facts or by using deceptive means. If that's the case (to be determined, as you say, by a jury), then they should be held accountable for their role in creating a public hazard that has unquestionably created great harm to the public at great cost to taxpayers.
5
@JJM
Explain how you could have this lawsuit as a jury trial?