A Chink Of Light?

It appears that the legal protection against being sued, afforded to gun manufacturers .....

Some Justice For Sandy Hook Victims

.... by the 'Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, (2005)' has a loophole. 

The law (sponsored by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups, and pushed through state legislatures and finally in to federal law), protected gun manufacturers from almost all financial responsibility, for any deaths that resulted from the misuse of their products. I admit that I am kind of surprised that no one had sued successfully prior to this law in 2005?

Now in some respect that makes sense, a bit like car manufacturers not being responsible for car crashes, except if there is a manufacturing fault .... So the human driving the car, or shooting the gun is always primarily responsible. But if a car manufacturer advertised a car as 'good for mowing down pedestrians', it would be liable for prosecution or being sued if someone did just that. Similarly gun manufacturers advertising has to be responsible, to comply with the 2005 acts provision against 'illegal marketing claims' (including I assume, slogans such as 'good for mowing targets down')

It was this provision in the law, that allowed the Sandy Hook parents of families of nine of the 26 victims to successfully get £53.9m ($73m) damages from Remington, in an out of court settlement. 

Adverts And Copy Like This Formed The Basis Of The Lawsuit ....

They claimed it had aimed it advertising for its Bushmaster AR-15 (used by Adam Lanza to kill 20 children and six school employees) rifle, to "at-risk" young males, via product promotions in violent video games, and with bombastic, militaristic language such as the words "consider your man card reissued" under an image of one of its rifles.

Man Card Is Now Revoked

I suspect that all arms manufacturers will be scaling back their advertising from today (and indeed the man card link has been removed), and will be searching police records to see if any of their products were used in mass shootings, and how that weapon was advertised at the time.

You would think that maybe this would open a little chink of common sense in the USA's love of the gun .... but you would be wrong. On the the 11th of May 2022 a federal appeals court in California has ruled in a 2 - 1 vote that the 2019 California state's ban on the sale of semi-automatic firearms to Americans under 21 was unconstitutional, in that it violated the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to private gun ownership.

Its a sign of the madness that exists over guns in the USA that while the minimum legal age in California for tobacco, alcohol or cannabis sales is 21, the federal appeal court ruling brought the minimum age for rifle and shotgun sales back to just 18. In the light of the latest two mass killings in Buffalo and Robb Elementary, Texas, it might seem that any hopes of curtailing the sale of guns has gone again. 

But if the victims families from these latest incidents, all successfully sue the gun/rifle manufacturers, then these weapons (especially assault rifles), may simply be taken off the market, as too expensive to sell to civilian buyers anymore.