Judge advances Sandy Hook lawsuit

| April 15, 2016

Bushmaster XM15-E2S

According to Newsweek, Connecticut State Judge Barbara Bellis rejected the gun companies’ motion to dismiss them from responsibility for the tragic shooting of 26 people at that elementary school over three years ago. Ten of those families are suing Remington Arms Co., the manufacturer of the weapon, Camfour Inc., a distributor of firearms, and Riverview Gun Sales, the retail dealer that has since closed it’s doors because the litigants say that they knew, or that they should have known about the high risks posed by the weapon that was used in the crime.

Of course, the judge has dismissed completely that allowing the law suit to go forward is against the law, specifically, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a 2005 law that protects gun manufacturers and sellers from specious lawsuits.

I understand that the victims are looking for someone to blame, since the shooter is dead as well as his mother, the person who bought the gun legally and left it where the shooter could get a hold of it after he killed her. The existing gun laws prevented the shooter from buying a gun himself, so he needed an alternate plan – killing his own mother with a .22-caliber Savage MK II-F bolt action rifle, shooting her four times in the head while she was in bed, still in her pajamas.

So the victims are looking for deep pockets because money makes people feel better about the loss of their children, and of course, that’s Remington and the others.

Democrat candidates have made it an issue in their campaign for the presidency. Who wants to punish the manufacturers of legal products more? You know, despite the fact that it’s un-American. Where will it end?

Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists

36 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Ex-PH2

Where does it end? It doesn’t until someone says it ends.

Blaming a manufacturer for someone’s misuse of its product is not new. It’s one thing to know that there is a faulty ignition switch in your current production line of cars, if you knew it and didn’t do anything about it, and people die because of that failure.

It’s another thing entirely to blame a product manufacturer for what someone does when he misuses a product. That’s the same thing as saying it’s Jim Beam’s fault that you got drunk on whisky and had an accident on the way home, or that you got into a drag race on a back road and ended up in the ditch with a wrecked car and a busted leg.

People are going to find fault with you for wearing a jacket with dog hair on it to the movies, when they’re allergic to dogs and you don’t know them and didn’t know they were coming.

Yes, this is just a way of dealing with grief. Money solves everything, doesn’t it?

IDC SARC

Judge Barbara Bellis:

I’d hit it!

NR Pax

With a stick

Lurker Curt

Repeatedly

B Woodman

Forget a stick. Use the whole damn forest — repeatedly — until “it” gains some common sense and obedience for the law(s) she swore to uphold.

Silentium Est Aureum

Some people are like chemlights–you want to snap them and shake the shit out of them until the light comes on.

Eden

Winning Internet comment for today!

A Proud Infidel®™

Some people are like Slinkies®™, not really good for anything but FUN to watch when you push one down a flight or three of stairs!!!

Cowpill

You Google her picture and she is lumped in with every left wing tree hugging peace preaching law breaking liberal retard.

Sparks

Politics and the law aside, I have to agree with you IDC SARC! I’d take seconds.

Usafvet509

With a Mack truck

MSG Eric

Seeing as how she’s a hippie, you’d probably need a mack truck to feel anything.

A Proud Infidel®™

With a rusty tire iron covered in Tetanus bacteria.

The Other Whitey

Fine, but we all know you’d screw a toaster if you thought nobody was looking.

B Woodman

Can a state judge be arrested, tried, and convicted for breaking the very laws she swore an oath to uphold and obey?

If you or I were to break a law even 1/10th as much as what she has done, we’d find ourselves, not IN the jail, but UNDER the jail.

Tom K

Unfortunately she has judicial immunity. However, if she continues to fail to follow the law, and if her rulings are overturned by a higher court, I believe the governing body that monitors judges will give her a stern talking to.

MSG Eric

Well as long as they don’t give her a “red line” she’ll be okay.

UpNorth

I do believe the judge is trying out for a spot on the Federal bench when Hillzy or the Bernout get elected. With her total disregard for the law, she’s a perfect fit for the 9th Circus Court of Appeals.

Pinto Nag

It’s not a popular thing to do, but the best way to handle this is for the gun manufacturers to not settle out of court. They need to go to court and grub the litigants in the dirt, then make them responsible for all legal fees. It always looks bad when a corporation plows over the little people, but it needs to be done in this case.

Hondo

Methinks someone needs to remind Judge Bellis of the rather clear language in Article VI of the US Constitution regarding what constitutes “the supreme Law of the land”, along with the following clauses which follow immediately afterwards:

“and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”(emphasis added)

However, that may not be productive. IMO this is a baldfaced political stunt on the Judge’s part. Her term of office expires in about 3 years, and I’m guessing she’s posturing for her next appointment – or possibly elective office. CT is the epitome of a true-blue libidiot state.

Joe Mama

Hopefully this will turn out to be a good thing, like what happened to Luckygunner:

http://www.guns.com/2015/04/23/aurora-theater-victims-family-may-owe-280000-in-lucky-gunner-lawsuit/

Hondo

The judge should also be disciplined by the CT State Bar for abuse of authority. What she has allowed here is very clearly precluded by Federal law.

Sadly, it’s libidiot CT. So they’ll probably not do a damn thing to her.

MSG Eric

That’s not true Hondo. She’ll probably get a promotion. And if she sank enough money into Hillary’s campaign, a potential nominee to the Supreme Court if Hillary becomes POTUS.

Sparks

Why not include the city for providing easy street access to the school? Makes about as much sense to me.

F@ckyoCouch

Amen. And file lawsuit on the construction company for the concrete that teenage d-bag walked into the school on. And read the dopey justification/op-ed the couple wrote in response to Sander’s comment. Not that I’m a fan of his, but he stated it was ridiculous to allow Remington to be sued. Their op-ed reply shows what sorry, money-hungry, attention whores do for kicks. Tragedy? Absolutely. Grounds for making a political statements based on popular liberal media sentiment? F@ck them.

NR Pax

The anti-self defense folks have never forgiven the Constitution for cockblocking them on total gun confiscation after Sandy Hook. This is just yet another attempt.

And I’m sorry to say this, but I hope the parents are absolutely ruined after this case is done. Yes, they have suffered a horrid tragedy that I would not wish on anyone but that doesn’t give them the right to go after everyone else’s rights.

HMCS(FMF) ret.

After reading the post, I get the feeling that the lawyers representing the families are like one soon to be disbarred lawer – they have been looking for the “big payday” and have used the families as a means for getting it and sold it to the families as “they are the people that made and sold the big black bang sticks, and they have lots of money”. IIRC, wasn’t there another case that was recently in the news where the family tried to go after a gun store or company and lost BIG TIME in court?

Based on the judge’s actions, she seems to think that she’s above the law… and probably anti-gun on top of that.

Note to IDC… I wouldn’t hit that with your Johnson. She’s probably one of them crazee ladies…

Hondo

Yep. See the link in the comment by “Joe Mama” above.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

No matter how it goes in Barb’s court she’s set the case up to fail on federal appeal…

I suspect purposely for many of the same reasons Hondo points out…during a future run for office she wants to prove that she was willing to MAKE THEM PAY for the crime of manufacturing legal products in the US because someone else misused the product.

We’ll see how that turns out for her…

2/17 Air Cav

“Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week.” Go to hell, Newsweek. I was there long enough to view the billboard-sized sorry pic that accompanies the story. Assholes. The vics were vics because of a murderous lunatic, not b/c of the particular type of gun he stole to kill. Where’s his pic, behind the pay wall?

Frankie Cee "In the clear"

Would that same judge hold Ford, Honda, Hyundai, or Kia responsible for a drunk driving fatality? What about the dealership that sold the car that the drunk driver steals to commit his act of killing?
Or, sue the makers of Ambien, and the corner drug store, because a homeowner was asleep when someone broke in the house and beat his wife.

The Other Whitey

So where is the lawsuit against GM for the asshole who got into a drunken shouting match with his girlfriend and decided to run her over with his pickup?

Where is the lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch (or whoever the hell owns them now) for drunk-driving fatalities?

Where is the lawsuit against the contractor who dug the swimming pool for the kid who drowned in it?

Where is the lawsuit against 7-11 for selling incendiary devices like matches and Bic lighters that are so commonly used by arsonists? Hell, they let those things go without so much as a background check!

Until I see those lawsuits, Madam Judge can fuck herself.

MSG Eric

This makes me want to move to Connecticut so I can get rich. I’ll sue Mcdonald’s for making me fat, I’ll sue Heineken and Anheiser-Busch if I ever get a DUI, then I’ll sue Toyota for the car I drove in the DUI. I will sue hershey chocolates and pepsico for my cavities.

After that I’ll sue Dell and porno companies for my bad eyesight. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go after Samsung. I can sue AM General because all the riding around in HMMWV’s I’ve done has caused hearing issues.

I’d sue politicians for all the horrible things they’ve caused to happen in this country, but that will still be illegal of course since, they’re politicians, and will protect themselves (just like judicial immunity).

2/17 Air Cav

Jurisdiction is a threshold issue in every case. There are various types of jurisdiction, including whether a court can entertain the matter sought to be put before it. Usually, that’s a no brainer. In any event, several years ago, Bellis had a case in which a lifelong school reformer was appointed superintendent of schools in Bridgeport. State law required that superintendents be certified and the cert included the completion of a leadership course or some such thing. Anyhow, the guy didn’t have it BUT did have alternate coursework, designed for him, that arguably met the state law requirement. Suit was brought and Bellis ruled—in a scant 27 pages—that the alternate did not meet the state’s requirement and she ordered him removed. He left, taking a better paying job elsewhere but appealed the Bellis decision. A unanimous appellate court ruled that case should never had made it before Bellis, for lack of jurisdiction. Like I said, that’s pretty basic stuff, almost as basic as reading a Federal law regarding and applying it to the facts in a given case, say, liability of gun manufacturers for harm done with their legally produced and marketed products.

David

Another activist judge hoping to get an unpopular-among-liberals law overturned, or at least set a precedent they can point at. There is a part of the PLCA which refers to negligent marketing… she is probably hanging her hat on that because Remington sponsors Call of Duty and a few others, I read.

streetsweeper

I said it once before and I’ll say it again and again. They want their very own version of “Runaway Jury” (movie) of Sandy Hook.

https://youtu.be/qRFxiUCO5SQ