U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Family members sue Lubbock man and gunmaker a year after deadly mass shooting in Midland-Odessa,” The Dallas Morning News reported Saturday. “The suit says Kentucky-based Anderson Manufacturing ’should have known’ of illegal gun sales.”
After being fired from his job, the perpetrator, a “prohibited person” forbidden by law to possess a firearm, went on a killing rampage targeting police and random victims. Left unsaid is how the company “should have known.” Instead, the plaintiffs are insisting that the court ignores the law and that the defendants be held liable for standards that are impossible to meet.
First, there is the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. According to Congressional Research Service, “The PLCAA generally bars lawsuits in federal or state court against firearm manufacturers, distributors, and dealers when a third party acquires a firearm from that distribution chain and uses it for criminal ends.” It does not protect against “product liability actions stemming from design or manufacture defects,” nor against “actions brought against a manufacturer or seller who knowingly violated a state or federal statute ‘applicable to’ the sale or marketing of a firearm or ammunition.”
How Anderson Manufacturing “should have known” that a private party who legally acquired one of their products would then transfer it to the killer is not explained, because it can’t be. It would require psychic powers. The plaintiffs and their lawyer are looking to blame a party with deeper pockets than the dead killer’s “estate,” and they want the court to ignore the separation of powers and usurp authority by legislating from the bench. They’re also trying to end private sales and overturn PLCAA, major gun-grabber goals as per the Democrat Party platform:
To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy.
That’s parroted by the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket.
As for those background checks, the real motive isn’t hard to find. It’s actually flat-out admitted in the National Institute of Justice “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies”:
Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…
Then there’s the matter of the killer having previously failed to pass a NICS check. The real question here is how it’s a good idea for someone “legally” deemed too dangerous to be trusted with a gun to be trusted to stalk freely among the rest of us.
As for the private seller, due process should apply if anything resembling the Bill of Rights still applies. Instead, per Everything Lubbock, his home has been raided, his firearms have been confiscated, and the feds have asked a judge to “permanently forfeit” them – all without a conviction for a crime.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer alleges the seller should have known the killer was ineligible to own a gun because he had “two teardrop tattoos on his face.”
First of all, there is no state or federal law prohibiting people with tattoos from owning guns, nor has further legislation established what body placement, content, or artistic expressions should be disqualifiers. Not content to eviscerate the Second Amendment, the First is now deemed fair game.
True, tear tattoos would be outside the experience of and off-putting to many private individuals, some of whom would no doubt choose to avoid anyone so inked. But imagine the “progressive” attacks against “intolerance” and worse, and the lawsuits that would result if gun (or any) manufacturers used that as criteria to discriminate and deny purchases of lawful products.
“What about those tattoos?” lawyer John Sloan says the seller should have asked. “Why do you have those?”
Closing the Tattoo Loophole is a standard he and the plaintiffs really want to advocate? Is that something Sloan would presume to ask a potential client? Gun owners tired of nosy ignoramuses demanding to know “why” they “need” this or that have an answer for grabbers like Sloan. It begins with “Because” and ends with “that’s why.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
Start suing GM and Ford and the rest for their crashing, Drunk driving and all, This is the same thing. The gun is a tool it can not do ANYTHING on it’s own…
@mottlee – No more cars for anyone with a tattoo. Next thing you know is they’ll require a strip search to confirm absence of tattoos. Maybe apply that to other products as well. Allowing such a lawsuit to proceed opens the door to any seller to be sued for not recognizing anything which anyone thinks could be a sign. Manufacturers and retailers can only respond by implementing draconian restrictions on who they’ll sell anything to. Imagine the grocer – “you are too skinny and might be bulimic – so we cannot sell to you” or “you are overweight so we’ll… Read more »
Infringing against Little Debbie and Hostess!
EXACTLY !!
AMEN! It is a tool and a tool we on the side of right and righteousness use them to stop the left and scumbags in the streets! When will enough be enough?How many more innocent people need to be murdered in the name of communism and the left before WE THE PEOPLE take our the trash?
This needs to be broadcast widely with the message that gun grabbers want to discriminate against people with tattoos, and that they consider tattooed people to be criminals. There are a lot of people both on the right, and even moreso on the left who are not criminals and tattooed.
I guess this scumbag attorney missed the boat on Roundup and mesothelioma
He might still be able to join the case against the BSA and the Catholic archdioceses. These lawyers put the tort in extort.
Just another ambulance chaser looking for a big payday with his frivolous lawsuit, the court should send him down the road and make him pay any monies to the defendant for costs incurred.
The left is certainly doing all they can to take away our guns,while letting violent criminals our of prisons as well as allowing them all to run the streets and murder innocent Law Abiding Americans! The Dems/Libs need to be stopped!!! If they continue the rest of the people in this country will not stand for it!!! Lets face it the left has to truck in paid rioters/criminals to burn,loot,rape and even murder Americans to try and force the rest of us to take a knee to them! I for one will “never” submit and will stand for whats right… Read more »
To: John Sloan pompous windbag lawyer; Chris Kyle’s wife did not say the same thing.
You are correct
With FMJ’s, you can get three at once.
The intent behind the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to to indemnify manufacturers from liability of legally supplying a product to someone who, later and unbeknownst to the manufacturer, uses that product in the commission of a crime. It does not matter whether the product is a weapon or not. Cars are used in the commission of crimes everyday, but none of the manufacturers of automobiles are sued…same is true for manufacturers of flammable materials used by arsonists, including matches and lighter or other ignition source products. There are literally millions of products that could be used in… Read more »
This lawyer is such a clown except he’s not funny, the perp wasn’t allowed to own a firearm because of previous crimes how can the gun manufacturer be held responsible for that, what an idiot to even suggest that. As far as the face Tattoos would he also classify every woman who has a tramp stamp tattoo as a whore, tattoos became a fashionable statement that many like and some don’t, but do you judge one by their looks and ink they have. If that’s the case why do we have so many Tattoo parlors across the country and even… Read more »
I made a judgement about someone the other day because of one of the numerous tattoos he was wearing. I was leaving a business as he was entering and he had this very visible tat on his right forearm. The business was a gun store/gun range; the tat read: Molon Labe. I said to him, “Come and take them?” And he responded, “That’s right.”
David, have you seen this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teardrop_tattoo The teardrop is one of the most widely recognized prison tattoos and has various meanings. It can signify that the wearer has spent time in prison, or more specifically that the wearer was raped while incarcerated and tattooed by the rapist as a “property” mark and for humiliation, since facial tattoos cannot be concealed. The tattoo is sometimes worn by the female companions of prisoners in solidarity with their loved ones. Amy Winehouse had a teardrop drawn on her face in eyeliner after her husband Blake entered the Pentonville prison hospital following a suspected… Read more »
Blame the gun manufacturer ? ABSOLUTELY NOT…. The blame goes DIRECTLY on the person who’s finger pulled the trigger on a machine to make it fire, that machine can do NOTHING without a human finger operating the trigger, FACT ! The manufacturer has ZERO ability to know WHO is going to buy/steal their firearm/S/N’d parts. The federal background check is to weed out those who can or CANNOT buy their firearm/S/N’d parts. Obviously there are no checks and balances in place to weed out lying, say/do anything for money lawyers like Sloan.