Good day all. With all the political news this week, we had a court decision that you should take notice of, particularly if you support the 2nd Amendment and personal responsibility.
The case goes back to the horrific mass shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut in 2012, when Adam Lanza murdered his mother, took her guns and shot up an elementary school. There is no need to go over the events of that horror, they are well know. Nutcase steals guns, goes someplace he knows he won’t get shot at and proceeds to do evil. We’ve seen it before, and, unfortunately, we will see it again.
The parents and family members of the murdered men, women and children, with the able assistance of the various gun control organizations, decided to try and bankrupt the maker of the rifle Lanza used, an AR15 variant called the Bushmaster. The eventual goal of the backers of the case was to force the end of all manufacturing of firearms in the United States. Yesterday, the Connecticut judge hearing the case dismissed it ruling that the manufacturer was immune from this sort of lawsuit. Here are some of the details from Fox News:
A judge on Friday dismissed a wrongful-death lawsuit by Newtown families against the maker of the rifle used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre, citing an embattled federal law that shields gun manufacturers from most lawsuits over criminal use of their products.
State Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis granted a motion by Remington Arms to strike the lawsuit by the families of nine children and adults killed and a teacher who survived the Dec. 14, 2012, school attack, in which a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six educators with a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle made by Remington.
The judge agreed with attorneys for Madison, North Carolina-based Remington that the lawsuit should be dismissed under the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was passed by Congress in 2005 and shields gun makers from liability when their firearms are used in crimes.
The plaintiffs in the case were trying to gut the PLCAA, and made no secret of their plans to bankrupt the entire firearms industry in the United States. One of the reasons that the PLCAA was passed in the first place was the threats by the Gun Control/Gun Ban organizations to do just that. Some of the original arguments made was that these same types of lawsuits could also be used against other industries, such as automakers, beer and liquor producers, basically any industry in the United States where a product was misused by someone. The plaintiffs lawyers, as you would expect, has promised an appeal. On what grounds, I have no idea. However, the lawyers aren’t bothering with the law, since it isn’t on their side.
The families were seeking to hold Remington accountable for selling what their lawyers called a semi-automatic rifle that is too dangerous for the public because it was designed as a military killing machine. Their lawyer vowed an immediate appeal of Friday’s ruling.
The families and their attorneys tried to say that their case was an exception to the law.
But the families’ attorneys argued the lawsuit was allowed under an exception in the federal law that allows litigation against companies that know, or should know, that their weapons are likely to be used in a way that risks injury to others, and the judge disagreed.
This is another reason that congress passed the PLCAA and other, similar laws. To allow a company to be sued because of the actions of an individual who uses a company’s product in an unlawful manner is unfair. You can use a hammer to kill people. Are we going to hold Black & Decker responsible to that? If some greedy lawyer has his or her way, yes.
There was a third reason this law was passed. That is the national defense. The military doesn’t manufacture their own rifles and hasn’t for decades. It’s cheaper for them to set out a list of specifications and then select from multiple competitors. If the anti-Second Amendment crowd had their way, no firearms would be manufactured in the United States and we would have to buy from overseas sources. Nations that do that usually lose wars.
Besides Remington, other defendants in the lawsuit include firearms distributor Camfour and Riverview Gun Sales, the now-closed East Windsor store where the Newtown gunman’s mother legally bought the Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle used in the shooting.
Please note the words, “Legally bought”. Lanza’s mother, while she apparently did take him to a gun range, did NOT give him her guns. She kept them locked up in a gun safe. He broke into the safe and murdered his mother before proceeding to the school. Even the gun store shouldn’t be held liable since they followed all the federal and state laws on the books. That doesn’t stop lawyers of course, especially the ones with a political goal in mind, such as gutting the 2nd Amendment.
Presidential Candidate, Hillary Clinton has said that she will work to repeal the PLCAA and allow people to destroy the industry. Unless both houses of Congress switch to the democrats, that isn’t going to happen. It certainly won’t happen if the industry donates considerable amounts to the Clinton Slush Fund Foundation. A tip of the hat to the judge for upholding the rule of law and common sense.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
[yasr_visitor_votes size=”large”]
Means little if the defendants weren’t awarded cost of their defense.