Sandy Hook lawsuit: Why gunmakers are worried

“The wall of invulnerability around U.S. gun manufacturers just cracked a bit,” said Scott Martelle in the Los Angeles Times. The Supreme Court has refused to block a civil lawsuit against Remington Arms brought by the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Under a law Congress passed in 2005, gunmakers are generally shielded from liability when their products are used to commit crimes, although victims can sue them for making defective products or violating local laws. The Sandy Hook families argue that Remington broke Connecticut state law by irresponsibly marketing weapons like the Bushmaster AR-15–style semiautomatic used by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, boasting of its lethal military firepower and urging young men to get “your man card reissued.”

We in the firearms industry feel sympathy toward the Sandy Hook victims, said Lawrence Keane, a senior vice president for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, in TheFederalist.com. But “the murderer alone is responsible for his heinous actions.” Courts don’t hold Ford accountable when a drunk driver gets into one of their vehicles. The same standard should apply here. The Supreme Court “should have taken the case and killed it,” said Robert VerBruggen in NationalReview.com. Congress passed the 2005 law in the face of “a massive, coordinated attempt” by activists to force gunmakers into bankruptcy with frivolous lawsuits. The plaintiffs’ “far-flung theory” is that Remington’s marketing violated Connecticut’s law against “unfair or deceptive” trade practices by inciting mass murder. If this case succeeds, it will be a dark day for gun rights, opening “the floodgates to a new wave of litigation.”

Even if Remington ultimately prevails, said Ed Kilgore in NYMag.com, the trial will damage the gun lobby. The Sandy Hook families plan to use the discovery process to gain access to internal documents and expose the gun industry’s closely guarded marketing strategies for selling assault-style weapons to high-risk customers. It’s about time, said The Hartford Courant in an editorial. Just as Big Pharma is being forced to answer for its role in fomenting the opioid crisis, the gun industry must also face accountability for the horrific massacres it has helped cause. “The people who sell the weapon of choice for mass killers are going to have to reveal exactly how they peddle their message that wielding a weapon designed for military combat makes sense for ordinary civilians.”

■