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Judge Barbara Bellis reads her decision to place Mary-Jane Foster back on the ballot for the democratic primary for mayor Superior Court in Bridgeport, Conn. Sept. 2nd, 2011.

“Families of those killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting can continue to pursue their lawsuit against gun manufacturers,” cnn.com reports. “Judge Barbara Bellis denied Bushmaster Firearms and Remington’s motion to dismiss the case. The firm representing the families hailed the ruling as a victory. However, the ruling does not prevent gun makers from appealing and filing a new motion to strike the case.” Here’s something about Judge Bellis that you may find surprising [via ctpost.com] . . .

The 52-year-old Bellis, a product of Catholic schools, was born in Toms River, N.J. She graduated from Boston College in 1983, where she majored in classical studies and economics, receiving the Max L. Weiner Award for outstanding classics scholar. She received her law degree at Catholic University in 1986.

She lives in Shelton and is married to Stephen Bellis, a New Haven wrongful-death and medical-malpractice lawyer.

Following law school, Bellis joined the law firm of Flanagan, Mulvey, Oliver, Gould and Riccio in New Haven, where her practice focused on civil litigation, insurance defense and plaintiff’s personal injury cases. She became partner in the firm in 1994.

Huh. The Judge grew-up in a state where gun rights go to die. And she’s married to an ambulance chaser. And you might say she dabbled in a similar legal vein before her judicial appointment. Who knew?

But I bet you could have guessed Hillary Clinton’s official statement on Bellis’ ruling. The presidential candidate called it “an important step forward for these families, who are bravely fighting to hold irresponsible gunmakers accountable for their actions.”

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89 COMMENTS

    • Exactly … one attorney (wearing a black robe) looking out solely for the interests of other attorneys. Absolutely disgusting.

        • Another I have hope for the revamped TTAG that facilitates reporting problematic comments. Not only does that violate the bounds of decency, it runs contrary to the states positioning of the TTAG editors in what is considered acceptable on the website.

      • Please delete this flame. No need for vulgar attacks for a political position that is different than your own.

        • It’s not just a political idea. It’s a whole ideology that is different. It is wrong and sick and it cannot be reasoned with, and with humans there are only 2 ways to move a person, reason or force.

          Reason didn’t work on Nazi’s, the Vandals, or with the Mongols. There was only one solution for dealing with such sick ideologies.

    • And you would call this piece of shit a Judge? What has are jurisprudence system fallen to? Judges should interpret and uphold the law, not abridge, break, or make new law at their discretion.

  1. Just because the Dems want to repeal PLCAA doesn’t mean it’s already done, Your Honor. This is literally the kind of case that law prevents.

        • The grabbers should really go with dismissal while they can. Lawsuits have Discovery phases .. and Discovery for Sandy Hook will be interesting to say the least. Discovery will show:

          Most of the Sandy Hook school had been shuttered several years earlier due to asbestos and dilapidation, and that the section involved with the event was not a current school nor had any current students..

          As usually happens with these “shootings”, a multi-department active shooter training drill was occurring at the exact same time..

          Local officials reported that Homeland Security (wait, what?) had ordered the porta-pottys and directional signs and barriers for the school at least one day Before the shooting..

          .. which is approximately the same time (one day Before the shooting) in which an Adam Lanza with the same mother, father, and brother’s names listed as surviving kin had died in a different state hundreds of miles away.. (yeah, Adam Lanza, as such, died a day Before “he shot up the Sandy Hook school”), hmm ..

          A day Before the event was also when at least one “memorial to a teacher slain at Sandy Hook” was published onto Facebook. Oops. Trying to dissemble about why, and collusion apparently by Facebook itself to retcon the mistake was attempted, but screenshots and Archive.org had already captured it..

          Photographs of ‘scared crying children’ being led away from the school across the main parking-lot were widely publicized in mainstream media, but a local police vehicle’s dash-cam pointed across the entire parking lot, unblinkingly for Hours, during which the exodus event would have occurred, showed no such exodus. Not of 400. Not of 20. Not of one single solitary child. Those photographs could only have been taken from Before the day of “the shooting” (draw your own conclusions as to why) or else they would have crossed the view of the dash-cam recording..

          And who in the world would have had a camera out taking on-the-scene photographs of crying children “escaping from an active shooter event” which was Still in Progress. Or even have been able to Be there so quickly as to do so, in a -real- event. Be Serious.

          Other wider photographs of the parking lot showed bullet holes in the sheetmetal and windshields/windows of several vehicles. Assuming every bullet fired hit a vehicle, this would have been dozens and dozens of shots fired .. not inside the school but out in the parking lot. HUNDREDS of bullets fired if some 70% of the shots miss their target as in normal statistical figures. No aspect of the official narrative includes nor explains gigantic gunfights in the parking lot of the Sandy Hook school..

          The Honda “driven by Lanza to the school”, from photographs of it showing the license plate, belonged not to “Lanza’s mother” but rather to a known felon and FBI informant who was in custody at the time. DNA evidence from the car was said to have shown, not Adam Lanza or his mother, but quite logically the incarcerated felon who actually owned the vehicle..

          The most-likely explanation that explains the photographic evidence of the several bullet-riddled cars in the school’s parking lot would be that the cars (some of them) were Training Cars, shot up previously in training exercises elsewhere, and moved to .. staged at .. the Sandy Hook school parking lot. As the school was essentially abandoned, this would make sense so the parking lot would appear properly used/populated in photographs. Otherwise, if those cars really belonged to people normally at the school, why was there a giant unreported firefight in the parking-lot? All those bullet holes came from Somewhere. Maybe those teachers were just from bad neighborhoods. “Lanza’s car” actually belonging to an incarcerated felon would also fit the mold of impounded/forfeited training vehicles..

          The condition of some of the cars (bullet-riddled), and the lack of any bodies ever being removed from the scene of “the massacre” would also explain why no ambulances or rescue personnel were allowed up to the actual school area. Scenes depicting such personnel are all from the parking lots of the firehouse and surrounding block several hundred yards down towards the main road..

          Not a single person “shot by Lanza” managed to live, apparently, as no ambulance removed any victims from the school, and no Life-flight helicopters were called to the school. In fact no normal emergency procedures of any kind were followed after “the shooting” to aid or rescue anyone from the scene. Later on, one person was said to have lived. No wait, they didn’t. No wait they did, as the elements of the story kept changing to explain away the mistakes in standard operating procedure, physics, and common sense..

          The school’s principal, Hochsprung, in an interview with The Newtown Bee later told how a man in a mask entered the school (not described as having shot out a window) and began walking the halls “firing more bullets than she could count”. Interesting story. Even more interesting since principal Hochsprung was one of the people reported to have been “killed by Lanza” at the school days Before her interview with the Bee..

          I could do this all day..

          Then, when attempts were made to obtain a court order to have the Sandy Hook “shooting” scene investigated by independent forensic teams .. the entire school was swiftly placed behind a barbed-wire fence and put under 24-hour per day armed guards .. until the entire school could be demolished to the ground by bulldozers several days later..

          Seems Legit.

          Demolition workers were required to sign NDA’s and were watched over to make sure they didn’t keep or remove anything from the scene..

          Then, before -also- destroying the “Lanza house” with bulldozers, the city purchased the house somehow for $1.

          Which is an interesting figure, since $1 is, coincidentally, what every parent of a child “killed at Sandy Hook” paid for each of their own houses .. when they all moved into the exact same one neighborhood, all from out-of-town, all one year before “the shooting”. A whole neighborhood of nice homes that all cost $1. Sweet deal. They’re like 240,000 times higher around here..

          Helicopter photos of “the Lanza house” from the day of the event show an empty house with no police activity occurring there. All of the police and government vehicles on the scene, and their occupants, are instead interestingly shown being parked at and visiting the house next door .. which belongs to an official from Homeland Security..

          Discovery might even well show a few of the “dead children” so wrongly gunned down by the inherent evilness of AR-15’s at a photo-op with President Obama a few weeks After they had been “killed”, and a score of the “dead children” from Sandy Hook also singing with Jennifer Hudson at the 2013 SuperBowl halftime show. Seriously, Sandy Hook Choir Superbowl, videos abound.

          And, as if any of that could be explained away, most pertinent to the case against AR-15’s perhaps is the fact that reports “from the scene” had tried to exclusively blame Glock (and later Sig) handguns and their high-capacity magazines (in the first couple of versions of the ever-changing official narrative) during which time photographs were inadvertently published of police officers pulling “Lanza’s AR-15” out of “his mother’s Honda” .. not in the school but obviously where it had been left (by whomever) the entire time out in the parking lot. NBC reported that it was in the Trunk. Here’s the issue with that..

          In a (for ‘some reason’) separate search some 9 hours after “the shooting”, police officers are filmed (finally) opening the trunk of the very-same-car.. and in the pristinely cleaned trunk, carefully framed in the center of the carpet, was a semiautomatic shotgun. The rationale for “finding” a shotgun so many hours after the event can be seen at the school window which “Adam Lanza shot out to enter the school”. Official photographs of the entry scene (the shot-out window) depict damage to interior furnishings, periodical racks etc, distinctive not to “AR-15’s” but quite rather to Shotguns (multiple-projectile pattern of soft lead or compressed metal .. not copper-jacketed rifle rounds, ala AR-15’s..), but why would it have been taken all the way back to the car after just having been used to breach initial entry into the school .. in a -real- event?

          Nevermind the local heroes whose story changed every time they told it. Nevermind the “father” who was laughing on camera before hyperventilating to get into character for his victim speech and pledge drive. Nevermind the bizarre laughing, joke-cracking medical examiner who would try to describe “all the horror” but couldn’t remember his lines..

          Short story for the lawsuit .. how were “all those children gunned down” with a rifle that was left in the car? Was it? Yes. No. Wait, yes, no. The defendant company should really demand independent exhumation and forensic examination of “all those bullet-riddled corpses” to determine whether or not “the wounds” are consistent with .223 (AR) rifle fire. Most amusing would be the children whose published pictures turned out to have been of real kids on the other side of the country, stolen from social media from their birthday parties and such, whose mom’s went on the record calling BS and to cease and desist. Pretty sure “Adam Lanza” never used a “Bushmaster AR” on still-living children who’ve never even been to Connecticut. Now call the liar Sandy Hook parents who said those kids were “theirs” to the stand to see if they’ll perjure .. or flip,.. along with the real parents and real still-living children..

          This contra-narrative evidence is rife. It’s easy to see why the Sandy Hook school was so hastily bulldozed to the ground rather than allow any independent investigators inside. But, bend over for Obama/Hillary etc, it’s our ‘Port Arthur’ capstone moment, .. cough up all 360+ million of your private firearms, .. you know, “for the children”.

          This is just off the top of my head from over 4 years ago. — Discovery for a court case? LOL, Get Popcorn. And read the area Obits for all the involved officials and ‘witnesses’ which will likely start dropping out like flies.

        • So, ‘Common Reason’, (*if* that’s your real internet name), do you think the same people behind that ‘coverup’ were the same folks that staged the Boston Marathon bombing (where nobody actually died) and the so-called victim’s limbs skillfully placed were really ‘harvested’ from a morgue shortly before the proven staged blast?

          And aren’t you concerned those same folks won’t kill you and make it look like suicide since if the ‘truth’ were really known it would blow their cover?

          They have that stuff down pat, like the fact that no airliner hit the Pentagon on 9-11, it was so perfectly staged. Like the moon landing…

          (Big-Ass Sarc tag)

          How folks can believe that conspiracy crap frankly baffles the living hell out of me.

          Question for the TTAG mental health pros, what kind of mental illness diagnosis would apply to those whackos?

        • Dear Common Reason,

          I am friends with a first responder who was on site and had to try to administer first aid to dead or dying children. It was a nasty event. You need to put the tinfoil down.

    • Just a pity that their enablers and their ambulance chasing buddies won’t wind up in the same state. The way I see it, everyone involved on the plaintif’s side is guilty of gross ethics violations. Sadly, they won’t get disbarred. Because, guns.

    • Remember when Congress used to use its constitutionally granted power to impeach judges who don’t follow the law? Yeah, neither do I.

  2. This idiot judge thinks that a) the AR15 is arguably a “military rifle”, and b) Congress allowed judicial leeway in the enacted legislation, such that the judge designating the non-military AR15 as a military rifle would exclude its manufacturer from the legislative protection enacted by Congress.

    I assume this goes for an immediate appeal, for its Debbie Nelson level of reversible error?

    • I think she just kicked the can down the road, let some other judge take the heat on this decision. She just ruled on a pretrial motion, the defense is free to make a motion to dismiss when the case actually goes to trial, then both sides can call expert witnesses, etc. In a way it’s probably smart, knowing that no matter which way she ruled one side would appeal anyway.

      • Yup. She took the easy way out. This way she won’t be the judge that threw it out, preserving her opportunity for higher appointments. She’s passing her responsibility to the jury to absolve her of being associated with having to make the unpopular but correct choice. The law was designed to prevent exactly this kind of lawsuit.

    • What I would like to know is this:

      “Lanza committed matricide before making off with /her/ firearms. Then he shot up the school.

      “How in the holy old Hell could /any/ manufacturer anticipate the killing of a legal firearms owner and the stealing of her firearms, for further nefarious acts?”

      THAT, boys & girls, is what this grizzled old non-com wants to know. Because something’s hinky about that whole idea (apart from the fact that it’s illogical, irrational, and just plain stupid to think that /any/ manufacturer would be responsible for such a situation…)

    • Well the AR-15 is a military rifle. It was designed for military use, but then the military adopted the automatic fire version of it, the M-16, and the AR-15 became the civilian design. But it was always a military design and is identical to the version used by the military minus the automatic fire feature. None of that should matter though.

    • In this case, yep. Lowest level dim-bulb jurist makes a ruling that only a like minded twit could make sense of. The simple answer is that this is what appeal is for (and impeachment).

      • Anyone saying that the United States is heading towards a civil war is mistaken. We are at war. Never has this country been so divided since the civil rights movement of the ’60s. When are we going to stand up to the fire hoses and police dogs? Are we affraid of our own power? The enemy, progressives, have declared war and will use and abuse the power of the State to defeat us. Our elected representatives are not fighting for us. I don’t see Trump fighting for us. Cruz is the best hope but the war won’t end with a favorable election. The progressives have stated their agenda and they won’t compromise. We must start a campaign of civil disobedience. Fuck unconstitutional gun laws!

  3. This is the most unbelievable idiotic shit that I have seen thinking they could really get some money out of gun company’s and ammo company’s for one this whole set up was to try to possibly end the gun game and take our rights away to bare arms. They set the whole thing up as you have probably have done heard and know by now that this never happened and caught many of the parents/actors on TV who are known set up actors playing roles then they mess up by having one of the so called dead kids sitting on the presidents lap after this had happened it was an attempt to take our rights to bare arms and have one of the biggest excuses to take our guns away. Also may I add that the assault rifle which evidently was a bushmaster was found in the trunk of the car after the whole set up had happened. I find it really hard to believe that this happened and to see someone try and get money out of the gun company’s after this had happened is down right stupid.

    • Nah, that was a shotgun that was removed from the trunk. Believe it or not sometimes shit happens. Even when it is stuff we don’t like and that can potentially be used to hurt us, it is still true. I have read tons of propaganda from both sides. I watched videos on YouTube until my eyes bled. No, something happened and it was not good. Was there more than one shooter? I don’t know. How many kids were killed? I don’t know. Anything involving minors is a sensitive subject. The lack of pictures and names is not uncommon.

      No matter what though it is not Bushmaster’s fault. The rifle did not kill or injure someone as a result of a malfunction. The rifle did not fail to operate as it was designed. The problem is the choice of targets and venue that the operator chose. That is not a result of anything involving Bushmaster anymore than it is Leatherman’s fault if I decide to go stabbing people or ripping out their toenails with the pliers. The only scam here is the liberals pretending to give a damn about white middle class children.

      I would imagine this ends in a dismissal or a settlement. In fact that is probably what the parents want is a chunk of money. If this goes to court the details of what happened will have to be further disclosed even though it is a civil trial. The case only works if damages can be proven.

  4. Legislating from the bench, indeed.
    I don’t know who is on the appeals court, but this should get tossed when it gets there.

  5. Wow. I see an ethics violation here, not just reversible error. The judge does not have the authority to arbitrarily decide which laws she will enforce. This is the sort of judge lynch mobs were made for.

    • I tend to agree. It would be one thing if Bushmaster sold a rifle to someone under questionable circumstances.

      That isn’t the case here. A violent madman murdered his own mother to gain access to a secured Bushmaster rifle. Bushmaster bears no responsibility whatsoever.

      If a violent madman murdered his own mother to gain access to secured gasoline and then used that gasoline to set a large building on fire (and kill dozens), would the gasoline refinery and distributor bear responsibility? Of course not.

    • The judge didn’t decide which laws to enforce here. The case will move forward, and the parties will argue the applicability of the law, and ultimately it will be decided. She was asked to throw the case out completely, and refused. Given that the plaintiffs argue that their claim is valid even under the existing law, it’s not an unreasonable decision if she had any doubt about whether their arguments are valid.

      • Sorry, but there is no possible theory of the events where the defendants don’t have immunity under existing statute. There is no way in hell that the plaintiffs can show a link between Bushmaster and the shooter directly. Without such a direct link, there’s no way you can show culpability.

        This is an activist judge who needs to be dragged out into the street, beaten, then stood up against a wall and shot for treason.

      • Gotta fall somewhere in between you two (closer to int19h today; I was closer to pwrserge yesterday when I was reading the story on ABC News and commenting there). I think dismissing the case would be the correct ruling; the purpose of the PLCAA was to prevent gun makers from having to go through the whole time-and-money consuming trial process for this kind of legally groundless suit. The judge seems to be playing politics here; the ABC News report indicated that she said a motion to dismiss would better be argued at a later stage of the proceedings. I think she just doesn’t want to shut the plaintiffs off completely right at the start for political reasons. That flies in the face of the PLCAA rationale, but it is a fairly common practice in judge-land that doesn’t necessarily equate to treason.

    • Absolute statements such as this tend to be false.

      If she chose to commit suicide, would you stop her? Your statement would suggest so.

      • “If she chose to commit suicide, would you stop her?”

        If the HildaBeast desired to off herself, I could easily see myself cutting the telephone lines if she took a poison, flattening the tires of any vehicle that might be used to drive her to medical care, and probably a number of other things to “help her on her way”.

        But then again, for those of you who have been reading my comments over the past few years know very well, I’m not a very nice person…

        🙂

  6. “an important step forward for these families, who are bravely fighting to hold irresponsible gunmakers accountable for their actions.”

    Mentally insane son murders mother and seizes her firearms. Goes on killing spree. Kills himself afterward.

    Who can we blame for this? Gun Manufacturers! lol. Because they knowingly sold these firearms to criminals? Nope. Because they sold them to a Dealer who then sold them to a Connecticut mom? Nope. Because this firearm is too dangerous in the public hands! lol. All it is, is a semi-automatic firearm with a removable magazine. Just like the majority of all other firearms out there.

    From newsweek:

    The families are suing the maker, distributor and seller of the rifle, which the gunman used to kill 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, in less than five minutes on December 14, 2012. They argue the rifle shouldn’t have been entrusted to the general public because it is a military-style assault weapon that is unsuited for civilian use. They say the gun companies knew—or should have known—about the high risks posed by the weapon, including the ability for a shooter to use it to inflict maximum casualties and serious injury.

    Textbook PLCAA protection. This moronic judge knows this and is just using this move for political attention. Moreover their description is complete opinionated subjective nonsense.

    • I think it’s more like she wants to avoid “political notice” as “that judge who threw those poor grieving people out of court”.

  7. Sooooooo now i can sue budwieser for my mothers death? What is this nation coming to? I sometimes cannot stand it!

    • Suing Budweiser?

      That depends. You’ll have to take this very rigorous test to see.

      1) Did she ever drink Budweiser?
      2) Did anyone in her family ever drink Budweiser?
      3) Did anyone who was ever within five miles of her drink Budweiser?
      4) Did any of the above people ever see a Budweiser advertisement?
      5) Did any of the above people ever see a Budweiser for sale?

      If the answer to any one of these questions was yes, you can sue.

      I realize that’s a really tough test to pass, but there it is.

      /sarc

      • Steve, for how many years did people sue the cigarette companies for giving people lung cancer?

        How many *decades* did people laugh at them for doing something so futile?

        Who’s laughing now?

        Hmmm?

        (Note that the American cigarette manufactures now primarily export.)

        • Very aware of that. I was trying to poke fun at the lawyers, not the post I was replying to. Guess I misfired.

      • I know you included the /sarc tag, but Poe’s Law kicks in regarding your post.

        What you wrote sounds ridiculous, but that would not stop the Proggies from making such proposals.

        The Statists propose (and too often, pass) such ridiculous laws all the time. Original Gun Free School Zones ring a bell? Through no fault of your own, just mere proximity to a school you may or may not have known was there, you could have been in violation of federal law.

        In other words, I’m bettin’ MADD is chomping at the bit waiting for this gun manufacturer case to move forward so they have precedent to sue Budweiser in any and all DUI related cases…wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

        Statist Controllers gotta use the State for Control…

        • I guess I shouldn’t have used the tag, it made it unclear what my point was.

          I intended to parody someone, but it sure wasn’t the original poster. I just didn’t want anyone to think I was actually advocating the bullshit that’s being shoveled down our throats.

        • No, I get that.

          I was just musing about how no matter how ridiculous something seems to us, that alone would not stop .gov from attempting it.

          They find new ways to redefine “stupid” every day it seems. Stupid laws, stupid grants, stupid campaign remarks/speeches, etc.

          Yet they seem to really think they are our ‘betters.’ Maybe that’s the best redefinition of “stupid” yet.

  8. “an important step forward for these families, who are bravely fighting to hold irresponsible gunmakers accountable for their actions.”

    What “actions?”

    Hillary never gives a direct answer to a question, ever. And she only makes statements designed to stir up and appeal to emotions. She speaks in vague and often non sequitur rubbish.

    Anyone with two wits about them should see how dishonest and unbalanced she is and should be terrified that she wants to be President.

    She makes my skin crawl.

    Oh, and that judge is a real piece of work, too. She should be forced to recuse herself.

  9. ‘…an important step forward…’

    Seems kind of backwards when progressives call ignoring a federal law as ‘an important step forward’ when they’ve been ignoring the Bill of Rights all along.

  10. Did any of you actually read the decision? It was a technicality about jurisdiction, nothing about the merits of the case. And it doesn’t preclude having the case thrown out before going before a jury. It looks to me like a motion to strike (rather than this motion to dismiss) would have a very good chance of success.

    tl;dr – this ruling isn’t a big deal.

    (I’m not a lawyer, but I did read the decision.)

    • Thanks for writing this. My head spins everytime I read the type of comments that are throughout this thread. Ill admit that I didn’t bother to read the decision (I am an attorney though) but just because a single motion to dismiss (if that’s even what it was) was rejected doesn’t mean a case has any merit.

      Part of the problem with non-legal media (i.e. not a state Bar publication or similar) is that no one cares to get the story right, including TTAG, if it gets clicks or views. We rightfully hammer the other side when they get some technical firearm issue incorrect but many of us don’t bother to do our homework ourselves when it comes to other issues. So rather than pulling the decision, TTAG relies on other sources and assumes the judge arbitrarily ruled against the defendants because she’s from an antigun state, previously practiced personal injury law, and is married to another pi attorney. I thought this was the armed intelligentsia, not the armed ignoramuses.

      • You being a JD may have a somewhat more nuanced and “sophisticated” read on this than most laymen. But no judge with the authority to stop something this nonsensical cold in it’s track before it wastes more tax payer money on court resources, should get a pass for avoiding to do so. Even without a complete comprehension of all the details, people know that this is just abuse of the court system.

        If I filed a suit against Pratt&Whitney because my kid got bit by a dog, and NASA messed up the moon by walking on it, causing werewolfs to howl, and maybe the dog was half wolf, and Pratt&Whitney is in the same industry as some of the firms involved in the moonshot…. A judge with the authority to do so, should throw my suit out before I waste any more resources. Even a judge who is married to an ambulance chaser.

        • It can still be thrown out. If it’s thrown out for the wrong reason, then it ends up in appeals court. That’s just more expensive.

          The problem with this news story is that it’s not really news. Nothing about this ruling really effects anybody outside of that legal profession.

          It’s hard for laypeople like us to watch cases where we’re concerned about the outcomes because:
          1. It’s all… so… darn… slow.
          2. There’s lots of stuff like this that the media reports on without understanding. And the media always wants every little decision to mean more than it does.

      • I agree, now that I am over my initial pique, that she is basically kicking the can down the road a bit. But I still say that flies in the face of the whole rationale for the PLCAA in the first place. Even if you concede that the AR-15 is a “military weapon” (and in fairness, the judge on her own is not supposed to make a factual finding herself as to whether it is or isn’t), there is no legal precedent in common or statutory law for the proposition that simply manufacturing a “military weapon” is a liability-inducing act, and it is up to the law to say who legally can and can’t buy them. EDIT: Oh, and I am a JD too.

        • Well, I’ve now read the ruling. Virtually all of the comments here – yours included – presume that the court considered the merits of the case when it did not. Defendants’ counsel made the decision to attack the court’s jurisdiction rather than whether plaintiffs were barred by the PLCAA, or whether the Connecticut law applied. (“Thus, at this juncture, the court need not and will not consider the merits of the plaintiff’s negligent entrustment theory or CUTPA’s applicability to the sale or marketing of firearms.”). That’s my only point.

          I’m not sure if you are practicing or not, but I don’t see courts sua sponte kicking cases out. It just doesn’t happen. Defense counsel chose to attack jurisdiction rather than the legal basis of the complaint and lost. I couldn’t imagine that the case would proceed past a properly crafted 12b6 motion (or apparently a motion to strike in CT) or a summary judgment motion but who knows.

        • Aha–Well, you have done a service, the reports I read certainly did not characterize it as a jurisdictional plea. But, if I may point out– a court ruling on a party’s motion, however characterized, is not acting sua sponte, so I don’t see how that suggestion came up. Since it is a state court, obviously a 12(b)6 wouldn’t apply, unless by some coincidence the Connecticut state equivalent has the same numbering in the state civil procedure code–but yes, I don’t see how the suit could get past such a motion. Unless the judge doesn’t quite follow the law, which is hardly a novel occurrence.

  11. I think shame on the sandy hook victims for letting a lawyer jump on this. Money is not going to bring their childeren back. America the land of sue r’s. Make that sewers, where the feces dwell

  12. FLAME DELETED How on earth can you hold a company responsible for the misuse by a third party? She is pure activist and has kicked the law in the nuts. FLAME DELETED

  13. This is a good reminder of why this presidential election is so important. The selection of judges, especially to the Supreme Court, will determine what our effective rights are in this country.

    • This. We do NOT need any more Sotomoyers or Kagans (or worse…..Obama?) on SCOTUS. If people would have gotten out to vote, they wouldn’t be there now.

  14. So, by her legislating from the bench, essentially ignoring federal law, she has forced this to get significantly more expensive. In the end, after all the appeals, the plaintiffs will have to pay the legal costs of both sides which will likely bankrupt them. Got it.

  15. My take on this? 1. It’s bad. The longer this case goes on, the worse things look. 2. Remington not only currently makes bad guns, but their lawyers are also not very good. This is exactly the kind of case the PLCAA was intended to prohibit. This should have been a slam dunk getting the case tossed.

  16. The more I look at Judge Belis pic, the hotter I get. Id just liove to throw that robe over her head and cram it up her a$$. Just look at her, yah know she wants it. Poor girl all them hot black studs she sends to prison, hey baby, I can smell you from here. Lets do some coke and get freakey. Drop down momma, on your hands and knees, Im going to do yah like your daddy done, come on baby, let me show you round the room, the vulture and his plastic straw, he’s going to make you dance and shout for more

  17. I feel micro and maybe even macro-agressed by this article. Damn you TTAG. Where is my “safe place”. /Sarc/

  18. Impeached?

    As in…

    Judge: What are you armed people doing at my front door?
    Patriots: You are being impeached.

    One day maybe.

  19. The only law suit justified against a gun manufacturer should be for failure to perform as advertised.

    Trigger pull must be followed by a bang, no bang without trigger pull, send projectile toward target, and not blow up in your hand, etc.

    And even those failures may share contributory negligence with operator error.

  20. I disagree with the characterization that this is legislating from the bench. I’m ambulance chaser (and nothing in this comment shall be taken to be either legal advice or creating an attorney-client relationship) and I read the judge’s order. I have not, however seen the moving papers from the defendants.

    The judge ruled that the law does not withdraw the matter from her jurisdiction. For a court to hear a case, it must have jurisdiction. That means the constitution or a statue must empower the judge to hear the case. The judge states in the order that she’s not deciding the legal sufficiency of the complaint. Legal sufficiency means whether the plead facts which will put their case into one of the exceptions that would allow the actions to be heard.

    The judge says that her reading of the papers (anyone have a link to them?) state that she does not have jurisdiction to hear the case. The federal law probably does not remove jurisdiction. It erects legal barriers and protects companies but cases can still be heard by courts.

    If the defense attorneys focused their arguments on jurisdiction, she is right. It’s not a jurisdictional issue. It’s a legal sufficiency issue.

    The part about the consumer law is state specific and I’m not from CT. However, it seems wrong based on how those laws operate in other states.

  21. Ha. Irresponsible gun makers. Like how Ford Motor Company is irresponsible for making the cars drunks use to kill innocent kids. McDonald’s sells food they know people will crave and overindulge in, (with that exact outcome in mind actually, just like cigarettes.) can I sue them for making me fat? How bout for giving someone heart disease? This case is so blatantly political that the judge and any lawyers attached to it should be impeached/disbarred/laughed out of the country. Whatever’s applicable to whoever. Where my country gone?

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