The Gun Industry’s Clear and Present Danger: Liability to Shooting Victims
The U.S. firearms industry is facing a different kind of existential threat: liability to shooting victims, surmises Alison Frankel of Reuters.
She based that statement on the evidence of a petition filed Friday by Remington Arms, maker of the Bushmaster version of the AR-15 rifle that was used to kill 20 small children in Sandy Hook.
“Remington’s lawyers at Baker Botts asked the Supreme Court to grant review of a 2019 ruling in which the Connecticut Supreme Court held that Sandy Hook victims’ families can move forward with a suit attempting to hold Remington responsible for marketing and promoting a military-style weapon to civilians bent on executing campaigns of violence,” she writes.
“If the Supreme Court doesn’t step in, Remington said, firearms makers will face “a flood of lawsuits nationwide” that will subject them to “crippling litigation burdens.”
