Families of Newtown shooting victims sue gunmaker, seller
In this Jan. 28, 2013, file photo, firearms training unit Detective Barbara J. Mattson, of the Connecticut State Police, holds up a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, the same make and model of gun used by Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook School shooting, for a demonstration during a hearing of a legislative subcommittee reviewing gun laws, at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Conn. (AP)
The negligence and wrongful death lawsuit, filed in Bridgeport Superior Court, asserts that the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle should not have been made publicly available because it was designed for military use and is unsuited for hunting or home defense.
"The AR-15 was specifically engineered for the United States military to meet the needs of changing warfare," attorney Josh Koskoff said in a release. "In fact, one of the Army's specifications for the AR-15 was that it has the capability to penetrate a steel helmet."
In addition to Bushmaster, the defendants are Camfour, a firearm distributor, and Riverview Gun Sales, the East Windsor store where the gunman's mother purchased the Bushmaster rifle in 2010.
Messages seeking comment from the defendants were not immediately returned.
Bill Sherlach, whose wife, Mary, was killed in the shooting, said he believes in the Second Amendment but also that the gun industry needs to be held to "standard business practices" when it comes to assuming the risk for producing, making and selling a product.
"These companies assume no responsibility for marketing and selling a product to the general population who are not trained to use it nor even understand the power of it," he said.
The plaintiffs include Sherlach and the families of Vicki Soto, Dylan Hockley, Noah Pozner, Lauren Rousseau, Benjamin Wheeler, Jesse Lewis, Daniel Barden, Rachel D'Avino and teacher Natalie Hammond, who was injured in the shooting.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Nicole Hockley, Dylan's mother, planned a news conference later Monday morning with U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty and U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy.
The Newtown gunman, Adam Lanza, shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, on the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, before driving to the school and gunning down 20 children and six educators with the semi-automatic rifle. He committed suicide as police arrived.
In 2005, Congress and President George W. Bush approved a federal law that shielded gun makers from lawsuits over criminal use of their products, with some exemptions.
2 comments:
So...if someone takes a Humvee or a Jeep and runs down a bunch of people at a street fair, the victims families will sue the manufacturer of the vehicle as the original design was for military use...?
I think this will be tossed out by any judge with a lick of sense.
Also, it could get damned uncomfortable for the families and powers that be, as Bushmaster would have every right to bring out ALL the evidence in the Newtown shootings. Pictures of crime scenes, ballistic evidence, pictures of victims after shooting, autopsy reports, and so on and so on...
I'm wondering if there is not something else involved. I wohder if those families got the idea to sue by themselves or if some group didn't push it. Why? simply to cause disention. Ever notice that of late more and more news seems to have as its goal to cause angst and disention? This happened in Germany as well as in other countries when the government there was in a state of change. How come the Republicans just roll over even though they start out saying they are against this or that? Then we have those police abuse incidents. More and more we are being BS'd by the government as well as by the news media. Eventually, we will be at the point of not trusting any group or agency. Which is exactly what those who wish to take over this country want. Time to wake up America....I dunno...look around you, seems to me the majority of the public either don't care or are too damm dumb to see what is happening.
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