Posted on 03/05/2016 1:48:48 PM PST by Sub-Driver
The Right to Sue the Gun Industry
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD MARCH 4, 2016
The world recoiled in horror in 2012 when 20 Connecticut schoolchildren and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School by a deranged teenager using a military-style assault rifle to fire 154 rounds in less than five minutes. The weapon was a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle adapted from its original role as a battlefield weapon. The AR-15, which is designed to inflict maximum casualties with rapid bursts, should never have been available for purchase by civilians.
This is the eminently reasonable point that the parents of the 6- and 7-year-old students cut down at the school are now pressing in Connecticut state court. They are attempting to sue the gun manufacturer, Remington; the wholesaler; and a local retailer for recklessness in providing the weapon to the consumer marketplace “with no conceivable use for it other than the mass killing of other human beings.”
The question of whether the lawsuit will be allowed to proceed is at issue because Congress, prodded by the gun lobby, in 2005 foolishly granted the gun industry nearly complete immunity from legal claims and damages from the criminal use of guns.
The Sandy Hook parents argue that their suit should continue because that law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, allows claims against companies — gun shop dealers, for example — if they knew or should have known that the weapons they sold were likely to risk injury to others. The parents contend that the maker of the Bushmaster is no less culpable because it knowingly marketed a risky war weapon to civilians.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The 9th SCOTUS may be kinda important; I could see such a lawsuit getting to SCOTUS and undermining 2nd amendment by making it so hard to do business in this country that...
So we can sue Intel, AMD, and Microsoft for hackers and spammers, right New York Times?
” . . . the M-16 was based on the AR-15, not the other way around.”
ought-six has some of the nomenclature right, but got the sequence wrong.
Fairchild developed the first AR15 from the AR-10, a 7.62mm rifle designed by Eugene Stoner, who then worked for Fairchild. Both were select-fire arms. Military contracts were not forthcoming - this was just at the time when the M14 was selected. License to manufacture was awarded to Colt’s; USAF placed an order but the US Army (by law and precedent, DoD executive agent for small arms) intervened and canceled all such actions.
Field testing renewed military interest in small-caliber high-velocity rifles - they were more controllable on full auto. The Colt-made 5.56mm rifle was approved as the M16 in 1964. Amid widespread controversy, then-SecDef Robert Strange McNamara halted M14 production and shut down Springfield Armory permanently.
(further details concerning these events appeared in the most recent _American Rifleman_ magazine, print edition)
After several years of M16 production, Colt’s designed a semi-only variant to be marketed to civilian shooters. They did not even call it the AR-15: early rifles were labeled “Colt Sporter, Model SP-1.” Only after various controversies did they conclude the name recognition was worth a redesignation.
Pure idiocy. Sue auto manufacturers for accidents then. What retarded thinking.
What the NYT is proposing sounds very much like an “ex post facto” law, prohibited by the Constitution. You could use the same logic to sue automakers for the actions of drunk drivers, to sue bicycle manufacturers for bicycle accidents, to sue drug manufacturers for drug overdoses, and food manufacturers for obesity. In all of these cases - and countless others - there is a virtual certainty that their product will be abused by someone, somewhere.
PS. The NY Times still exists because of Gatling guns on its roof during the draft riots.
Semi-auto rifles have been around since 1890. Why is it that only in the last THIRTY YEARS have they become a problem when the anti-gun bedwetters thought they looked like a “target of opportunity”.
KMA On so many levels.
That Bushmaster is a NEUTERED version of the one used in combat. It would be wholly REJECTED if presented for use in war.
So FU NY Slimes.
During the 2016 United States presidential election the act became a campaign issue, particularly within the Democratic Party primaries.
Hillary Clinton stated that she would repeal the law if elected[17] saying "They are the only business in America that is wholly protected from any kind of liability. They can sell a gun to someone they know they shouldn't, and they won't be sued. There will be no consequences."[18] Shortly after Clinton made this claim, fact checker Politifact rated the statement false, noting that other businesses and entities in America have similar or greater levels of protection against liability, and that firearms dealers and manufacturers are still susceptible to lawsuits and liability.[19]
Bernie Sanders, who as a senator voted for the law in 2005, defended the law 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."
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I no longer have any sympathy for the Sandy Hook people. It's just a money grab, by any other name.
Bernie sounds like a libertarian.
Besides a new school [costing the state millions]....families are fighting over dividing up $28M or more.
Pathetic.
Then I should have the right to sue all those drug manufactures whose drugs destroyed my health along with the doctors who kept prescribing them knowing they were damaging my health, but as they police their own you can’t hardly prove it.
Can I sue the people who make Fence Post, one was used to murder my 16 year old son. Where is the ban on Fence Post?
I am so sorry about your son.
The AR-15 was first built in 1959 by ArmaLite. It sold the design to Colt a couple years later, and Colt modified the design and came up with the M-16.
So, the M-16 did come from the AR-15 design.
New York Values
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