Proof #59520 This Country has Gone Off the Rails

Forums: Guns, Gun Control, Newtown Connecticut, Sandy Hook, No 59520
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Newtown parents who lost children in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting appear to be preparing wrongful death lawsuits over the killings. “Parents of 11 of the 20 first-graders shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School have filed papers in Connecticut probate court seeking to create estates for their children, a move that would allow the parents to file such lawsuits,” the Associated Press reports. “Most of those parents checked a box on the forms saying they intend to file wrongful death actions, according to a probate court clerk.”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/12/09/sandy_hook_parents_prepare_lawsuit_over_newtown_school_shooting.html

Both that these parents want to sue, and that the system allows it.

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@hawkeye10,

Huh.

I clicked the link to see who they might be suing and nobody seems to know.

I've never suffered the kind of grief and outrage that these families have but I don't understand what purpose a lawsuit would have against either the gun maker or the city.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

Huh.
I clicked the link to see who they might be suing and nobody seems to know.
I've never suffered the kind of grief and outrage that these families have but I don't understand what purpose a lawsuit would have against either the gun maker or the city.

Presumably the gun maker will be protected from such lawsuits.

Good question. Who exactly are they going to try to sue?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

The school and the gun maker most likely, but to my mind it does not matter because the only two people who should have liability, the kid and the mom, are dead. The gun maker made a legal product, it was sold legally, and no one was in a position to know about how dangerous this kid was and prevent this other than the mom.

Sure I can understand we want money for our loss", people are after all greedy and pissed off, but the parents should know that no one alive is to blame, and the courts should not low crackpot lawsuits.

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I heard it mentioned briefly on the TV over the weekend. They are going to sue the maker of the assault weapon (Bushmaster).

Hopefully Bushmaster will be well-protected from such frivolous lawsuits.

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@oralloy,

The cigarette companies were not.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Other defendants in the lawsuit include firearm distributor Camfour and gun store Riverview Gun Sales where Nancy Lanza purchased the AR-15 rifle

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30484531

Crazy. So if my wife gets hit and killed today by someone driving a Silverado I can sue GM and the dealer that sold the truck??

This should not even make it past a 5 minute hearing in court.

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Quote:

With tort law mostly foreclosed in the gun cases, it’s shocking that no other substantial compensation mechanism has been created. In an op-ed in the New York Times last year, Lucinda Finley and I proposed imposing a tax on the sale of guns to fund such a compensation program. So far, nothing’s happened. The Sandy Hook complaint is just the latest in a numbing series of reminders that, as the plaintiffs allege, it’s time for “nothing more and nothing less than accountability” for those who make and sell guns

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/12/sandy_hook_lawsuit_parents_of_school_shooting_victims_sue_gun_manufacturer.html

trying to run gun safety in America through manufacturer liability law would be an abuse of liability law. Bushmaster is no more responsible for how people use the guns it makes than GM is responsible for how people drive the cars it makes. If the government wants to pass laws on what kind of guns are made fine. If the government wants to set up a gun safety training program and then order Bushmaster to not sell a gun to anyone who has not passed then fine. But this lawsuit is nonsense, it is an attempt to abuse the law.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye says:

Quote:

Bushmaster is no more responsible for how people use the guns it makes than GM is responsible for how people drive the cars it makes.

To claim a manufacturer of a product expressly designed to kill things (and people) has no liability when that product is used as it was designed, and kills someone , which is unquestionably a crime, is ludicrous. My suspicion is that this will end up something like liability for deaths due to cigarettes. People will sue companies like Bushnmaster and lose, and someone else will be shot and the gun maker sued, and the plaintiffs will lose, and the suits will keep happening and the plaintiffs will lose, until finally someone will win and take the manufacturer for millions, and then someone else will win, and someone else, and eventually the gun makers will start to lose regularly. And with any luck eventually we'll have a civil society again..

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@MontereyJack,

Abusing liability law this way would be sad, but it would have no affect because by then 3d printing will be able to make a good gun.

Or we can import them like we do our illegal drugs.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Hardly an abuse. Precisely what the law was designed for. If you make a product DESIGNED to kill people, not one designed for some other purpose which can accidentally cause harm, and someone uses it for its intended purpose, then you damned well should be liable. And someday, probably someday soon, some sharp law firm is going to prove it.

3D printing so far can't make guns that'll last more than a single shot, and are likely to explode getting off that shot. They may or may not get better, but they're for the foreseeable futurenot likely to be much of a threat. Crappy product, expensive. The profeswsional gun merchants are always going to make the huge bullk of the product. If they can be forced to shoulder most of the social costs of their product, the better for the country. And it'll happen. For better or worse, we're a litigious society, and it's going to come down on their heads.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

To claim a manufacturer of a product expressly designed to kill things (and people) has no liability when that product is used as it was designed, and kills someone, which is unquestionably a crime, is ludicrous.

Not when you factor in the reality that it is a legitimate product that all Americans have the right to have.

MontereyJack wrote:

My suspicion is that this will end up something like liability for deaths due to cigarettes. People will sue companies like Bushnmaster and lose, and someone else will be shot and the gun maker sued, and the plaintiffs will lose, and the suits will keep happening and the plaintiffs will lose, until finally someone will win and take the manufacturer for millions, and then someone else will win, and someone else, and eventually the gun makers will start to lose regularly.

The early wins of tobacco people were based on a fiction they were maintaining. They had no specific legal protection.

The gun manufacturers are winning because they provide a product that is vital to American freedom, and the laws are specifically written to exempt them from such lawsuits.

MontereyJack wrote:

And with any luck eventually we'll have a civil society again..

We already have civil society.

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@MontereyJack,

Quote:

If you make a product DESIGNED to kill people, not one designed for some other purpose which can accidentally cause harm, and someone uses it for its intended purpose, then you damned well should be liable. And someday, probably someday soon, some sharp law firm is going to prove it.

If the Constitution did not have anything to say on this you mught have a point, but since the supreme law of the land does you dont.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

Hardly an abuse. Precisely what the law was designed for.

No. Liability law was not designed for the purposes of violating the rights of the American people.

MontereyJack wrote:

If you make a product DESIGNED to kill people, not one designed for some other purpose which can accidentally cause harm, and someone uses it for its intended purpose, then you damned well should be liable.

It is silly to refer to a .223 as designed to kill people. It is a bit light to be optimal for that.

And no. The American people have the right to have such weapons. Therefore there is nothing wrong with providing them. In fact, those who provide such weapons for the American people are performing an honorable service to American society.

MontereyJack wrote:

And someday, probably someday soon, some sharp law firm is going to prove it.

Not with the laws specifically written to exempt gun manufacturers.

MontereyJack wrote:

3D printing so far can't make guns that'll last more than a single shot, and are likely to explode getting off that shot. They may or may not get better, but they're for the foreseeable futurenot likely to be much of a threat. Crappy product, expensive.

Maybe crappy if you mean the ones where the entire gun is made from plastic. The ones where just the lower receiver were made from plastic were pretty good though.

Such guns are not expensive. Pretty cheap actually.

MontereyJack wrote:

The profeswsional gun merchants are always going to make the huge bullk of the product. If they can be forced to shoulder most of the social costs of their product, the better for the country. And it'll happen. For better or worse, we're a litigious society, and it's going to come down on their heads.

You are forgetting that we the American people are not going to allow it to happen. We have protected the gun manufacturers from your abusive lawsuits, and we will continue to protect them.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

re oralloy:
The PRIMARY right of the American system ofgovernment is the right to LIFE, not someone else's right to kill you. When guns manufacturers, whose products are in fact designed to kill (and even if by your stasndards they mnay not be optimal, they nonetheless do an appallingly effective job of it), violate that basic right, they come in conflict with the hardheaded world of product liability law, and no matter how you may think gun makers have stacked the law in their favor, you are wrong. Much like tobacco manufacturers, they WILL lose. It may take a decade, it may take more, as it did with tobacco. But they willl lose. The sooner the lawsuits come, the sooner that will happen. Bring them on. Sue the **** out of them. It's the American way.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

The PRIMARY right of the American system of government is the right to LIFE,

Self defense is necessary to protect that right. Adequate gun ownership is necessary for self defense.

MontereyJack wrote:

When guns manufacturers, whose products are in fact designed to kill

Hunting weapons are designed to kill. Are you admitting once again that your agenda is to disarm America's hunters?

Self-defense weapons, on the other hand, are designed for rapid incapacitation.

Target-shooting guns are designed for striking non-living targets. That's why, when it comes to target shooting, Olympic Gold Medal winners (who use their guns very very well) never manage to kill anything at the Olympics despite all of the shooting that they do there.

MontereyJack wrote:

violate that basic right, they come in conflict with the hardheaded world of product liability law, and no matter how you may think gun makers have stacked the law in their favor, you are wrong.

Nope. I'm not wrong. The American people have ensured that our gun makers are immune to your abusive lawsuits.

MontereyJack wrote:

Much like tobacco manufacturers, they WILL lose. It may take a decade, it may take more, as it did with tobacco. But they willl lose.

Only in your daydreams.

MontereyJack wrote:

The sooner the lawsuits come, the sooner that will happen. Bring them on. Sue the **** out of them. It's the American way.

The sooner the lawsuits come, the sooner they will be thrown out of court before they are even heard.

I wouldn't mind seeing a provision in the law requiring the people who sue gun manufacturers to then have to pay the gun manufacturers' legal bills after the case is thrown out. Hmmmm....

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Whaat a pile of balderdash, oralloy. You're confusing "the American people" with craven politicians bought and paid for and under the thrall of the NRA and the gun lobby. They're not the same. Very few Olympians use semi-automatic weapons based on assault rifles as their weapon of choice, as opposed to mass shooters. They use highly specialized target rifles. I object to hunters of people far more than I do deer hunters.

We've got a conflict of rights here, the right to life obviously endangered by your phony "right to self-defense", which clearly in practice means America is turning into a free-fire field. Something is going to give, and all it will take is twelve honest men and women in a jury. And it's going to happen inevitably. Despite the NRA. The suit is far from frivolous. Bushmaster is culpable.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

Whaat a pile of balderdash, oralloy. You're confusing "the American people" with craven politicians bought and paid for and under the thrall of the NRA and the gun lobby. They're not the same.

The NRA are the representatives of the American people and the protectors of our Constitution.

MontereyJack wrote:

Very few Olympians use semi-automatic weapons based on assault rifles as their weapon of choice, as opposed to mass shooters.

Not necessarily. The term assault weapon refers only to harmless cosmetic features. Sometimes Olympic weapons run afoul of an assault weapons ban if the cosmetic features are similar enough to what the law prohibits. And whenever it happens, you and your ilk are more than happy to justify banning Olympic weapons.

But all that is beside the point. Olympian target shooters use guns, and you said (quite erroneously) that the only purpose of a gun was to kill.

If you are going to spew bumper sticker nonsense at me, it is fair game for me to point out all the flaws inherent in your slogans.

MontereyJack wrote:

We've got a conflict of rights here, the right to life obviously endangered by your phony "right to self-defense", which clearly in practice means America is turning into a free-fire field.

The right to self defense underpins the very foundations of our legal system. There is nothing even remotely phony about it. If we have no right to self defense, we also have no laws and no government.

And there is no conflict. The right to self defense protects the right to life.

MontereyJack wrote:

Something is going to give, and all it will take is twelve honest men and women in a jury. And it's going to happen inevitably.

This characterization of people who are willing to violate the law and overthrow our civil rights as "honest" is pretty silly.

And luckily these abusive lawsuits will be thrown out of court before they ever reach a jury.

We do need to have the law modified to ensure that the gun manufactures' legal fees are paid by the people who sue them however. (Kind of like how Trayvon Martin's parents were unable to even try to sue Mr. Zimmerman. Because if they did try, they would have been forced to pay his legal bills.)

MontereyJack wrote:

The suit is far from frivolous.

Wrong again. It is far more than frivolous. It is a criminally abusive attempt to violate the civil rights of all Americans.

MontereyJack wrote:

Bushmaster is culpable.

The law says otherwise.

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@hawkeye10,

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Proof #59520 This Country has Gone Off the Rails

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