A handful of families impacted by the Sandy Hook school shooting have decided to ease their grief by suing the manufacturer of AR style rifles. Obviously, a little unnecessary litigation is the most effective way to right the wrongs of a madman. According to CNBC:
Ten families touched by the Newtown massacre filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday against companies that made, distributed and sold the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle that Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children and six staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary two years ago. The suit argues that the gun is a military assault weapon that never should have been on the general market.
According to these litigious survivors, it should be illegal for civilians to get their hands on modified pieces of machinery styled after military designs… I guess I should sell my Jeep. CNBC continued:
A federal law passed in 2005 shields gun makers and dealers from many liability lawsuits, but the families' lawyers say there are exceptions. The suit is using one of them — the theory of negligent entrustment — to argue that the companies are at fault for letting civilians get their hands on weapons meant for the battlefield.
“Negligent entrustment”… Boy, that pretty much sums up the leftist outlook on firearm ownership, doesn’t it? People like Mike Bloomberg, after all, don’t mind guns in the hands of their security personnel… They just don’t like the idea of trusting those pesky commoners with equal weaponry.
But let’s make sure we’re crystal clear on the complaint filed by these families of the Sandy Hook massacre: They’re upset because there are civilian versions of military weaponry. Somehow, the manufacturer of such weapons should be held responsible for the actions of a mentally disturbed young man (who stole the gun from his mother’s house and shot at defenseless children). Am I missing something?
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I guess by this standard, we should rush to outlaw all AR15 rifles, AK47s, 1911s, H&Ks, Glocks, most other semi-auto handguns, semi-auto shotguns, semi-auto rifles, a number of revolvers, a handful of double barreled shotguns, several bolt-action rifles (such as my favorite: the Remington 700), competition firearms, and the majority of popular home-defense pump-action shotguns… Right? Lucky for us, I don’t know of any military that still uses muskets or cap-and-ball Colts.
Of course, the litigious complaint is based in a provably unconstitutional argument. Even the Supreme Court decision, that upheld the 1934 Firearms act, argues that the general public is entitled to the same small arms as any “well regulated militia”. (Gee… Those words kinda ring a bell.) After all, the Second Amendment does not enumerate the American people’s right to shoot at sporting clays or hunt waterfowl.
But according to these ten families, Adam Lanza (the coward who decided to prey on defenseless children) isn’t the only bad guy in the tragic tale of Sandy Hook. The real trouble makers are apparently the gun manufacturers… They argue that it should be criminal for a company to have the audacity to manufacture an inanimate (legal) tool (perfectly suited for sporting, hunting, and home defense applications), and make it available to law abiding citizens. I guess we should start suing GM and Ford for having the audacity to sell vehicles to persons who might someday be inclined to drink and drive.
The truth is, Bushmaster ARs are perfectly safe amalgamations of plastic and metal. Only when misused by disturbed individuals (such as Adam Lanza) do they become a weapon of any real danger. The same could be said for hammers, which account for a few hundred more homicides each year than the dreaded AR15 rifle.
My heart breaks for the lives lost at Sandy Hook. But had some law-abiding citizen been on campus with an HK, 1911, or Glock (undoubtedly designed for military use) there may be a few less dead children. Let’s not punish lawful businesses – or their law abiding consumers – for the actions of a madman.
Honor the dead by building a better world; not destroying the purveyors of a rarely-misused inanimate object.
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