Appeal In Newtown Families' Lawsuit Against Gun Companies Continues

An AR-15 target rifle from AR-15.com forum poster Westford86.

Federal law was supposed to end the nonsense of suing gun companies for the unlawful use of their products. The Protection of Lawful Commerce of Arms Act was a layer that was designed to end the punitive measures by gun control advocates who prey on families of people slain with a gun, an attempt to make it too costly to manufacture and sell guns in this country.

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But that never stops the gun grabbers from trying.

Now, they’re trying a slightly different strategy on the subject with the families of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.

In the years since his 6-year-old son, Benjamin, was fatally shot at Sandy Hook Elementary School, David Wheeler has testified before state legislatures, lobbied members of Congress and sat beside his wife, Francine, as she delivered a speech during one of President Obama’s weekly addresses, pleading for changes to the nation’s gun laws.

This week, the families of the victims plan to be in Hartford, listening as lawyers lay out in state Supreme Court their case that the companies that manufactured and sold the military-style assault rifle used by the gunman bear responsibility for the attack in which 26 people, including 20 children, were killed.

They are deploying a novel strategy that the families and their lawyers say could pierce the sweeping shield created by federal law that protects gun companies from litigation and has thwarted countless lawsuits after their weapons were used to commit crimes.

Supporters believe that if the court clears the way for a jury trial, the gun companies’ internal communications — which the companies have fought fiercely to keep private — would surface in discovery, a potentially revealing and damaging glimpse into the industry and how it operates. It could also chart a legal road map for the survivors and relatives of victims in other mass shootings as they pursue accountability.

“It doesn’t make any sense at all that these products are free of liability,” Mr. Wheeler said in a recent interview. “It’s not a level playing field. It’s not American capitalistic business practice as we know it. It’s just not right.”

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Actually, it does.

No other product is so vilified as to actually need such protection. After all, no one blames Home Depot for the New York City terrorist attack on Halloween, now do they? All they did was rent a truck in good faith. Renting trucks is perfectly legal, so why would anyone sue them for it?

No one threatens Ford with a lawsuit because of a drunk driver, either. No one threatens to file suit against the maker of any other weapon used to kill.

But gun control advocates have long sought to sue gun companies for the illegal use of their products as if they were directly responsible. Thus, Congress sought to eliminate these burdensome lawsuits.

It actually makes sense if you’re not a shill for Everytown for Gun Safety or one of the other gun grabbing groups.

Of course, these people also seem to think that gun companies have internal communications that will somehow incriminate them. What? They think there was some discussion as to just how effective the weapon would be against small children? Absolutely absurd.

But, then again, that absurdity pretty much describes the kind of people that push the families of the dead to pursue legal action they know will go nowhere.

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