Gun Control & RKBA
Related: About this forumAmerica Is About to See How Guns Used in Mass Shootings Are Marketed
But then last Tuesday, that same judge, Barbara Bellis, of Connecticut's Superior Court, issued another ruling that determined the suit would be more than symbolic. Specifically, she said the discovery process could begin immediately and set a tentative trial date for April 3, 2018. A jury hearing the case would be historic, but Katherine Mesner-Hage, an attorney for the plaintiffs, says that getting the gun company to open its books for discovery is arguably just as huge.
That's because she and her co-council have constructed a creative PLCAA exemption, claiming, in essence, that the gun Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook massacre was specifically marketed as a killing machine. As part of discovery, they'll dig through the gunmaker's internal company memos and try to prove that the company was negligent.
http://www.vice.com/en_au/read/america-is-about-to-see-how-guns-used-in-mass-shootings-are-marketed
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ileus
(15,396 posts)
flamin lib
(14,559 posts)
Puha Ekapi
(594 posts)...this suit won't go anywhere. If it does, car manufacturers will have to be held accountable for DUI deaths. That isn't going to happen in any rational universe.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)(B) NEGLIGENT ENTRUSTMENT- As used in subparagraph (A)(ii), the term `negligent entrustment' means the supplying of a qualified product by a seller for use by another person when the seller knows, or reasonably should know, the person to whom the product is supplied is likely to, and does, use the product in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical injury to the person or others.
Nancy Lanza didn't use the AR. Even though plaintiff's will likely be able to show she bought it for Adam, that is not the defendants' responsibility.
Yes, Bushmasters goofy "man card" advertising is marketing based on "having this badass military weapon that's basically the exact same thing that our solider have carried from Vietnam to Iraq. And that's what you need", but neither the gun, nor the ads, are illegal. This suit seems to be exactly what the PLCAA is supposed to guard against.
But the judge is allowing it to continue, creatively based on "errors" made by the defendants in their motion to dismiss vs motion to strike; at that point she did not consider the merits of the negligent entrustment theory.
So, the plaintiffs are going to hope they find some thing that sticks, but how that fits with the specifics of Negligent Exception in this case, I do not see.
"Deceptive advertising, advertising despite knowing certain things––that's a little bit more analogous. Negligent entrustment is kind of a different theory.
Ok, so what if you go through discovery and don't find something that proves your theory, but merely suggest it's true? Or what if you find nothing at all?
"Well, obviously we have to find the facts the prove our case. If we don't find the facts that prove our case, defendants get another chance at the end of discovery to dismiss our case. So they get one shot at the beginning and and one after. So us going to trial is dependent upon us finding the facts.
It's hard to know exactly what we'll find, but there's a deep level of intuitiveness to the theory of our case in terms of [the company] taking a military weapon, selling it to the public, and marketing it as basically a mass casualty weapon, and continuing to market and sell it that way, despite it being used in repeated mass shootings and shootings that are more fatal than any other type of shootings. The story really speaks for itself—it's hard to say where discovery will lead us, but we are confident it will lead us toward trial."
ETA: 2 YEARS of discovery - I do hope the poor plaintiffs have VERY deep pockets.
beevul
(12,194 posts)Wouldn't they have to prove at some point, that adam lanza had actually seen and been influenced by the advertisements in question?
Their whole theory seems...well...if you go to the town of Far-Fetched, and get on a space flight to the Ridiculous system, and visit the planet Absurd...you're almost there.
I half wonder if they're just fishing in discovery for a treasure trove of documents to use in some sort of sick twisted public shame campaign.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)Ah - NOW I see it - Nancy Lanza USED the AR entrusted to her by the defendants to share/give to Adam to further connect & bond with him.
http://www.koskoff.com/In-the-News/Sandy-Hook-Families-Complaint.pdf pg 16
So THAT is why Bushmaster is responsible!!
Or not.
"the term `negligent entrustment' means the supplying of a qualified product by a seller for use by another person when the seller knows, or reasonably should know, the person to whom the product is supplied is likely to, and does, use the product in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical injury to the person or others."
beevul
(12,194 posts)beevul
(12,194 posts)Mesner-Hage: It was passed in 2005 in the shadow of the Iraq War—I don't think any member of the public knew that it was being passed.
We knew. It wasn't passed in the middle of the night like the NY safe act was. I wonder if Mesner-Hage approves of that.
Mesner-Hage: So what PLCAA did was add an additional level of protection. It did that by saying, as a general rule, you can't sue gun companies for damages resulting from the criminal use of a firearm. And most of the time, that [was] the way that people were trying to hold gun companies responsible; they were saying that someone along the way had misused the gun, and that was giving rise to lawsuit[s]. So that was the baseline of PLCAA.
Their lawyer admits what we have said all along.
Precisely what the PLCAA was passed into law to protect against, and they know and admit it.
It isn't a military weapon. Its a civilian weapon. That's not theory, its fact. Nobody markets an ar-15 as a "mass casualty weapon".
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,577 posts)...(and that's a bit of an if) the most that will be changed is how companies market. Imagine the marketing analogy to certain assault weapons bans. It's just the weapons reality.
Weapons are used by criminals to settle their issues with everyone else. Career criminals are after profit often from drugs, sometimes prostitution, now and then by taking your stuff or your cash. Guns are used to facilitate those activities. Cut the profit motive in those markets and violence will drop.