You have to wonder about “Journalists” like this. They speak from such a lofty position, but they don’t even have a trivial understanding of the issue.
The reason Adam Lanza was able to kill so many Sandy Hook Elementary School students and teachers so quickly more than two years ago was the weapon he used: A Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle.
Of course Lanza was shooting mostly young children, he could have used a knife or a bat with equal success. Hell it was a small attack compared to this incident in China where only knives were used. Also if it was the “firepower” of the gun, why is it that this body count wasn’t as high as Virginia tech where the killer only used a pair of pistols with limed-capacity magazines? Or Hell University of Texas where most of the killings were done with a basic hunting rifle.
It is descended from weapons designed for the battlefield, and it performed like it. The assault lasted about five minutes. Police recovered 154 bullet casings discharged from the Bushmaster, fired loosely at a pace of one shot every two seconds.
I can maybe fault the author on this bit of stupidity, because the M16 and its variants are such popular guns with both military all over the world, but culturally, most people do look at an AR-15 and think “Civilian Version of the M16” when in fact the AR-15 was first designed as a hunting and target rifle. Still In that first sentence it’s stated that the ONLY reason he was able to commit this act of murder was because he had a semi-auto rifle….yet he fired at roughly 1 shot every two seconds? I’m sure there was some rapid fire at this event, with time moving and not firing, etc, but man, what idiot directly contradicts themselves whilst being SO smug?
Now lawyers for the families of some of the victims are pursuing a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer, distributor and gun shop involved in making and selling the weapon Lanza used.
lRelated A 2nd Amendment refresher for The Times’ editorial boardThe legal argument has an uphill climb. In 2005, Congress adopted the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a shield law designed to protect makers and sellers of firearms from liability lawsuits. At the time, the gun industry was facing legal challenges by murder victims’ survivors and municipalities trying to force some accountability from those profiting by the millions of guns made and sold in the U.S.
The liability shield isn’t absolute, though. It does not protect the gun industry from lawsuits alleging “negligent entrustment or negligence,” leaving a door open to go after someone who sells a gun “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.”
Ummm, so what grounds does this lawsuit stand on?
The lawsuit, filed by the Koskoff Koskoff and Bieder firm in Bridgeport, Conn., alleges that the makers and dealers who handled that particular weapon reasonably should have known it would be used to kill a large number of people because that is exactly what the gun is designed to do. It’s a politically attractive argument for backers of gun control laws, but it’s hard to see the courts finding liability here based on “negligent entrustment” because there is nothing negligent in the legal sale of a gun. And the killer was not the person who bought the weapon, but her son, a step removed from what a gun seller could reasonably expect.
Still, I wish them luck.
Ahhh! The ever popular Frivolous grounds! I don’t wish them luck, and I hope the partners of Koskoff Koskoff and Bieder get disbarred for making a mockery of the law, and showing such insensitivity to the families who have gone though so much.
The strongest part of the lawsuit, though, might be the case it makes that such AR-15-style weapons should not be sold to civilians. The lawsuit argues that Bushmaster advertised the gun as a military weapon for civilian hands, with phrases such as “the ultimate combat weapons system,” “the uncompromising choice when you demand a rifle as mission-adaptable as you are,” and this: “Forces of opposition, bow down: You are single-handedly outnumbered.”
That’s selling combat, not self-defense, and it makes a good case for banning civilian possession of such weapons. But that ship has already sailed: The gun lobby has been very effective at heading off efforts to revive an expired assault weapon ban. That political equation isn’t likely to change in the foreseeable future.
No, idiot, the LAW OF THE LAND has made that ship sail. Technically since the creation of this country, but we needed a little clarification from Heller V DC, sorry, but guns in common lawful use cannot be restricted because of the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. Since this is from the LA Times, and LA, in general, and California as a whole….and Blue-State America overall has gotten VERY comfortable violating the US Constitution for the veiled and unsubstantiated promise of safety.
Don’t worry, your day in court will to come.
There has been some uncertainty over whether the previous assault gun ban drove down the nation’s rate of gun violence, especially since the vast majority of gun deaths involve handguns. Regardless, it’s hard to see a future Adam Lanza — and there will be more — being as lethally effective without access to these combat weapons.
Again, dunning Kruger! This idiot couldn’t Google “School Shootings”? He admits that the Assault Weapons ban did nothing but wake up Americans to the constant sham of gun control, but the deadly factor of school shootings, and why killers specifically pick schools (weather it’s primary schools, high schools, or colleges) is because they know for a fact, that the only people carrying guns will be clearly identified by their badge and uniform.
The issue was not that Lanza stole his mom’s rifle, it was that he selected a school in the first place to go shoot random strangers, and indeed he knew he could shoot people with impunity until he heard the sirens in the parking lot, in which he then made the last shot into his own head.
But again, “Progressives” don’t care about public safety, they don’t even care about dead children or their grieving families, they just want to ban guns…ALL guns.
