The parents of murdered Parkland students are following in the same legal footsteps as Sandy Hook parents. Two families have filed suit against the maker of the rifle and the store that sold it Nikolas Cruz, the killer who shot up Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February while school resource officers waited outside.
The parents of Jaime Guttenberg and Max Schacter say that American Outdoor Brands, the company that makes the AR-15 assault rifle used by the suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz, and Sunrise Tactical Supply, the store that sold it to him, are complicit in the attack that killed 14 students and three teachers.
The Guttenbergs and Schacters have apparently been convinced that this action somehow stands a chance against overwhelming legal precedent.
“We need to change history when it relates to guns, and we need to make gun makers responsible,” said Guttenberg’s father, Fred, at a news conference in Miami. “We need to make sure they don’t end up in hands of people who will kill innocents.”
The main purpose of the lawsuit is to challenge a 2001 Florida law prohibiting state and local governments from suing gun sellers in the event that their merchandise is used unlawfully.
Not to mention the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a federal statue that protects firearms manufacturers from liability when their products are used to break the law.
Families of victims in previous mass shootings — including those that took place at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut — have also attempted to sue gun manufacturers but eventually saw their cases dismissed.
The Parkland parents don’t seem to be relying on legal precedent in filing their suit.
But inspired by the movement started by students who survived the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, these parents appear to be planning a long-term strategy to keep the momentum going.
We’re not attorneys but we don’t expect “momentum” to get this any farther in a court of law than the Pulse and Sandy Hook lawsuits did.
Screw these parents. I am sorry for their loss, but this is a POS action. The firearm nor the store is in anyway at fault and they know it. This is nothing but spreading pain wider.
Screw the lawyers involved. My guess is that some jerk lawyer(s) decided to cash in on the parents’ pain by telling them this angle of attack has a chance of success. I can pretty much guarantee the lawyer isn’t doing the work pro-bono either. When this case fails miserably the lawyer is still going to get paid.
There are already lawsuits against involved parties that carry much more culpability than S&W. These parents should have joined the lawsuit against the Broward County Sheriffs and Scott Israel.
Fred Guttenberg is a nut. He’s unhinged with his antics. Follow him on twitter, he’s a cindy sheehan type of mentality.
These parents will be hit with the legal costs of the gun store, etc. when they lose just like Sandy phillips was forced to pay the $400k for lucky gunners attorneys
There could be some (cough Soros) sugar daddy (cough, Bloomberg) willing to pick up those legal fees in the case of a loss.
Phil:. Hadn’t happened in the lucky Gunner case afaik. The parents declared bankruptcy time avoid paying LG’s legal bills, iirc. Talk about not accepting the consequences.of their actions.
I can’t find any news releases saying that they actually filed BK, just Sandy claiming she’d never pay a penny to those who participated in her daughter’s murder (sigh) and editorials saying the judgment bankrupted them.
They’re still begging, BTW:
https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/194250/sandy-and-lonnie-phillips-fund/updates/572
I rather suspect that neither Broward County nor the Sheriff are liable for the loss under well established legal precedent if not also statutory immunity. These actors simply owed no duty of care to the students, as a matter of law, and these cases will go away relatively quickly.
“Guttenberg”? “Schacter”? Hmm there’s something about those surnames ….. “Kasky”, “paging shyster ‘Kasky’, where are you ‘Kasky'”?
Is Sheriff Scott Israel still sitting shiva for the overdue death of his career or is his greedy paws out seeking contributions for his reelection campaign?
Are you ACTUALLY being anti-Semitic or am I missing a joke or something here?
Would you feel better if they got “Aryan” legal help?
You’re worried about “Anti-Semitism”? I’m more worried Bolshevik/Marxist Jews trying to take our guns. The members of a faith persecuted and subjected to extermination campaigns for 2000 years got some nerve.
So if I paddle off into a near hurricane wind on Lake Powell in my Sea Kayak, Prjon is libel?? Absolute Total Nonsense!! Actually did that and survived!! Nothing to do with Prijon!!
How did the “alleged” shooter get to school that day? Did he walk? They should include Nike or Adidas in their lawsuit. Did he drive? They should include the vehicle maker in their lawsuit. He could have come to school that day with a baseball bat, or a sword. The inanimate object and those that manufactured such are not to blame. It is the individual user that should be held responsible, not the tools he used.
Who’s backing them in the suit?
Will their secret backers pay the plaintiffs’ costs for them when the judge finds they filed a frivolous action and sanctions them?
^this
If they were to win this, I’m suing Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler for carpul tunnel damage to my wrist. Who’s with me?
Also for the cost of your glasses. Your momma said you’d go blind
And for the cost of having your palms waxed to get rid of the embarassing hair.
And all this time, iv been using disposable razors.
I’m suing for all the bandaids I’ve had to use on the cuts to my palms and fingers.
You guys are cracking me up!
Dad yells “Son, if you keep sitting their in the couch whacking off you’re going to go blind.”
Son says, “Hey Dad, I’m over here in the kitchen.”
I’ll throw in with you on that one, bro!!!
Here Here…oh wait…uh….ah Hell, cats outta the bag. I’m in.
Who is going to be paying the legal defense bills if/when this suit is eventually dismissed? all it takes is one woke sjw judge to find against the manufacturer to open a can of legal worms
Could happen, but would never survive on appeal
And if it goes up to the SCOTUS and they uphold the ruling, our economy won’t survive either (I doubt many memebers of the government will survive if it happens)….. If my grandpa dies of old age while sittingon the toilet, then I’m going to sue Albert Einstein over general relativity, because reasons.
Sue Uber. They allegedly gave the shooter the ride to school
That one might actually stand a chance. A modern sport rifle, despite what hollywood sells, is not exactly an easy to conceal item. The uber driver could have/should have (lets use liberal logic for a min) noticed the rifle and drop off location and put 2 and 2 together. Of Course the suit would probably be instantly dimissed because uber is owned by antigun liberals ((See uber ccw policy),, but its still worth pursuing if it saves just one life.
To be fair, what the heck is the Uber driver going to do except call 911 or maybe try and run him over after he drops him off? Dude has an AR and you have a cellphone.
Stuff your common sense Drew! Those parents are in pain and Uber and Smith and Wesson are at fault because reasons! Smith and Wesson forced that machine bazooka in to that Uber driver’s hands and slaughtered those Deputy high schoolers in that gay elementary church in CaliFlorichusettexas!!!!…. Wait,… what?…. Screw you and screw your eyebrows! /sarc/
Punch out two take down pins and you have a package that can fit in a backpack. How long does it take to put an upper onto a lower?
And an AR pistol taken down can fit in a small school sized day pack. I saw one at my range. I was…amused?…by the really compact nature. I would not have given a second look to that pack in downtown Anywhere USA.
But they can pay the defendant’s legal fees after the suit gets thrown out.
And yet they dont blame the FBI, Sheriff Israel and the BCSO, Florida social services and the broward school board.
These parties knew cruz was a genuine threat but did absolutely nothing.
This exactly! I am sorry your kids died. I wish someone would have been in the room who could have stopped him. I would be angry with the perp, the school, the sro and sheriff, and even myself that I couldn’t protect my kid.
But these people think ARs shouldn’t be sold to civilians because they are scary child killers, so thus, s&w knows that only mass shooters buy those weapons, in fact, s&w is partnered with the devil, trying to see how many people they can corrupt and doom by luring them with inherently wicked weapons. They should only sell sporting and less lethal weapons. Like magnum revolvers.
Lawful Commerce in Arms Act
This says all that needs to be said. Been tried before. Law is quite clear as well as supreme court rulings on this type of litigation.
You know, the article I read about this last night attempts to argue that the Florida statute (which from memory appears to follow or mirror the federal law) is ambiguous and unconstitutional. They claim they do not know if the federal law applies. And I’m like, “DOH! Isn’t it obvious?”
Frivolous lawsuit, as it should be against the school district, Sheriff Israel, BCSO, & FBI for their failures to properly classify the shooter as a threat.
Surprised they aren’t suing the pair who “took in” the POS murderer…yet. They gave him access to his gat. Hope they lose everything. My sympathy evaporated…
Actually they have, apparently arguing that these folks should have taken his guns away.
“We’re not attorneys but we don’t expect “momentum” to get this any farther in a court of law than the Pulse and Sandy Hook lawsuits did.”
They are doing the same thing we are doing with firearm lawsuits.
They are keeping the legal ‘pipeline’ full of lawsuits in the expectation that SCOTUS will in the future be biased sympathetic to the Leftist ‘Progressive’ viewpoint.
Here is how I predict they will *eventually* win the lawsuit. –
A Leftist-majority SCOTUS will rule the ‘Protection in lawful commerce’ act narrowly unconstitutional based on ‘the unusually dangerous nature’ of guns in general.
In other words, ‘because guns’. That same mindset will eventually be used by cities to ban privately-owned firearm ownership and carry, even in the home.
Because of the ‘unusual dangerous’ of guns. That is how the 2A will die at the hands of the Leftists. And they will do it with glee, citing the ‘moral right’ of the reversal of the ‘Dred Scott’ decision.
Guns are a civil right issue, people. We had better damn well start treating it as such…
Doubtful. the Lawful commerce in Arms Act does not change the common law liability of gun manufacturers or sellers, all of whom are strictly liable for defects in the arms sold that cause injury. Just as it is with car manufacturers, who, as we all know, cannot be held liable simply because they built and sold a 400 hp road monster that a drunk driver smashed into a school bus full of children. All the law does is to quash frivolous lawsuits that were intended to force manufacturers out of business by attempting to hold them liable, just as these suits, for the intentional conduct of a third person. The court would have to (not saying it couldn’t) hold that guns are “unusually dangerous” despite plenty of authority that they are not.
Mark, you may be the only person who has ever accurately discussed the Law Commerce in Arms statute. Between the leftos who deliberately misrepresent how it works and our often ill-informed pro-gun brethren espousing their ignorance on the subject, your accurate description is welcomed. Thank you.
One of these days, someone will sue Uncle Ben’s for causing hemorrhoids. And they’ll win, too, because this is a country where the judiciary is a pain in the ass.
Ralph, is there a ‘Dead Pool II’ review in the works?
What worries me is if they have a game plan to turn this into a mission to overturn the PLCAA.
No clue what it might be, but that’s just my paranoid concern.
Dumbasses! Should be taking the school, police, and all those involved to task…Not the firearms, the seller, or the manufacture ?!?
Like suing a manufacture for arsonists using common over the counter matches or lighters. Or suing beer or cordial distillers for drunk driving…
Sue clothes manufacturers for not stopping bullets.
Since legally the manufacturer and the seller aren’t liable, these lawyers are doing well. Taking money to file suits that are going nowhere. Those parents are suckers. A little research goes a loooooong way.
It’s a golden age for lawyers, ignorance is at an all-time high and they couldn’t be happier! These lawsuits are everywhere, I would love to wake up in the morning and get a call to represent the plaintiffs, love to. If you want to know the truth, I would probably dance on the graves of the dead, kissing the dirt and thanking their stupid parents for buying me another yacht.
So we can sue Ford and Honda…all the beer and booze makers…for DUIs…right?
Cutlery makers and McDonalds for obesity?
Country is way too sue-happy…
If this is brought in federal court, why don’t we ever see Rule 11 sanctions on this kind of crap?
Because the federal statute contains a penalty, i.e., paying the defendnat’s costs and attorney’s fees, which is all a Rule 11 sanction would do..
This suit is actually illegal and these people need better legal advice. Some Aurora theater victim families tried this EXACT thing and got hit with a big judgement against them. Maybe It’s just illegal in Colorado but this exact thing was found to be illegal in Colorado. Legal or not, what they are doing is wrong and I will have no sympathy for them when they have to pay.
In technical language, it is not “illegal” (i.e. a crime) to file one of these suits, it is simply that the suit is barred by a particular statute. Lots of suits are barred for a lot of different reasons, but they are not “illegal.” The “stinger” for filing one of these suits is that the client (not the lawyer) has to pay the other sides costs and attorneys fees, which is a civil penalty, not a criminal one.
Maybe the statue should be changed to hold the lawyers jointly and severally liable for filing these suits. THAT would put a stop to the practice!
I’d be happy to see this end with disbarment and a Rico charge for the financiers.
One of the families in the Aurora Theater killings found out the hard way that the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” means, when they lost a Soros/Bloomberg backed suit against the gun seller in Colorado. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch of Denver has ordered the plaintiffs who sued The Sportsman’s Guide and Lucky Gunner, LLC for selling supplies to Aurora movie-theater shooter James Holmes, to pay the companies’ attorneys’ fees in the family’s unsuccessful civil suit against the firearms firms.
Try this site (http://71.11.3.134/share/PDF/Order_of_Dismissal_Phillips_v_Lucky_Gunner.pdf) to download a copy of the decision.
And I believe that the anti-gun backers of the lawsuit bailed out on paying the losers’ fees.
Have fun paying the defendants’ legal fees.
I’d tell my lawyers to start billing at 5K an hour. Make losing so incredibly painful for the plaintiffs that no one ever tries this again.
If the attorney approached the parents, he should be brought up for disbarment and criminally prosecuted for causing intentional emotional damage to the parents.
I agree. This is malpractice on the lawyer’s part. Plaintiffs don’t know the intricacies of the law, and it’s their lawyer’s responsibility to inform them. Even if she warned them, “Dude, this will cost you hundreds of thousands and get thrown out,” the lawyer should know she’s filing a case with no legal basis. The law should be changed so that the lawyers are also on the hook for the defendants fees, not just the plantiff.
Oh, that’ll work. Why don’t we sue budweiser for every dui and underage incident, car companies when their drivers cause fatalities, and mcdonalds for making everybody fat? Everything must go: Pencils for making mistakes, skateboard companies for hospital visits, converse and chiquita for tripping over a banana peel, coca cola for diabetes, computers for porn, let’s sue everything and nerf the world!
If only we could find a way to make it illegal to shoot people, then we wouldn’t have to worry about people buying guns.
They should have sued the clothing company and department store that sold him the clothes he wore that day. Surely if he were naked this wouldn’t have happened. They should also sue the vehicle company for the vehicle that drove him to the school. If he didn’t have a car to drive him, then this wouldn’t have happened. They should also sue his the real estate broker that sold them the home. If they didn’t live there, then this also likely wouldn’t have happened.
Come on guys. Need to put all the blame where it is due. He did wear a trench coat that day. If he was naked he might not have showed up. They are just as culpable as smith and wesson. Smith and wesson created a gun and sold it – therefore they are responsible (LOL!). Same as these other companies.
I’ve got an idea: Make it mandatory to wear a trenchcoat while being naked underneath, this will solve the problem.
This kind of crap makes me so angry. I have no sympathy for these Liberal Fascists anymore. To use the death of their kids to push a leftist agenda is reprehensible. I just hope that there is a special place in hell for these kinds of people. They have to know that they will be forced to pay Smith and Wesson for all their legal costs, and when that happens, they have no one else to blame but themselves. I hope that Smith-and-Wesson hires the most expensive legal team they can and stretches this as far as it will go so that these “parents” will be bankrupted into oblivion when it is over. I hope these people end up on the streets begging for scraps…because again, as far as I am concerned, they lost the right to get my sympathy. Geez Louise, this stuff makes me so angry. Anyone who is an enemy of the 2nd Amendment is an enemy to the Constitution. Anyone who is an enemy of the Constitution is an enemy of the United States. Anyone who is an enemy of the United States who is a US citizen is committing treason.
Sorry. I this stuff so pisses me off. I am so tired of having to defend the Constitution and the US – the first working free country in history – against idiots who somehow think that a supposedly “safe” tyranny is preferable to freedom.
Mods:
What’s going on, I want to change my screen name to “Newtown Arsonist Neil Heslin’s Insurance Adjuster” and use the same email as with “Mark Kelly’s Diapered Drooling Ventriloquist’s Dummy” screen name. Is there something in the system preventing that switch?
This is the fallout of the “new revelation” being popularized throughout antigun media and agitprop– the delusionally snarky idea that firearms are analogous to TOBACCO… and that the “Big Gun Lobby” can be “defeated” by following the “Big Tobacco” legal playbook to victory.
Go undercover, hop on some forums and discussions and pose as an antigun pundit. You’ll quickly discover just how marvelous these nutty people believe this idea is. It’s hot, it’s trendy, it’s the latest “promised land.” They believe they will destroy the “Big Gun Lobby” just like they vanquished “Big Tobacco.”
Except they didn’t, first of all… since anyone can walk into any gas station, convenient store, or department/grocery store and buy any one of more brands of cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, chew, dip, and snuff than ever before in history. And then freely light up in solidarity with tens of thousands of people still suffering and dying of emphysema, cancer, and heart disease. Sure, you get discriminated against, but boohoo life’s unfair. Very little has changed, substantively….
But, notwithstanding that truth– obviously firearms and American gun culture and Constitutionally protected guaranteed civil rights are pretty much identical to a traditional leisure activity drug that people willingly consume despite well-documented and well-known health risks. Right? (Yeah… you gotta be kiddin’, no?)
Yeah, no. The two have literally nothing in common, but it speaks very revealingly as to how antigun people perceive and what they believe concerning firearms and gun culture. They believe that guns are something “inherently dangerous” that Americans are lured into and “addicted to,” and they believe firearms have a similar net value as tobacco, making the user feel “cool and sophisticated,” while providing a relatively useless, extremely dirty & suicidally hazardous leisure benefit.
These lawsuits will succeed only if antigun propaganda simultaneously succeeds in convincing enough of America that firearms are analogous to tobacco. Steps should be taken to dispell this fradulent thinking, pronto. ALL the steps: To emphasize the lives saved, and to dismissively categorize the lives lost (i.e., “gun violence” is not monolithic– suicide is not crime is not police shootings is not home defense is not negligence is not mass shooting, etc., and all of these must continually be parsed, separated, and compartmentalized as wholly unrelated and demonstrably different effects of firearms use in America). Healthy mocking must be applied to ignorant antigun mouthpieces who shovel this “Big Guns equals Big Tobacco” conspiracy crap into the American media pipeline… a firearm is a tool, and you cannot eat a hammer, nor can you smoke it. And it must be pointed out, relentlessly, that the supermajority of American gun owners expect and receive nothing but positive benefits from their chosen tools, when the behavior of the gun owners is healthy and sane, and principally sound; misuse of firearms is categorically rare, proportionate to the number of guns and owners, even IF all types of crimes are considered as one uniform effect…which it can’t be, unless you’re ignorant, intolerant, and bigoted against ordinary gun owners.
And that’s the most important rebuttal, as an overall tack, I think. To serve up the innate philosophical hypocrisy ever-present in antigun hysterics’ arguments. In heaps and seconds: Are not they fighting for a more inclusive, more tolerant, more compassionate world? Are not they champions of civil rights, civil liberties, and equality? How can the lowly person who wishes to defend themselves against the injustices of bullying and hate, be treated so intolerantly by antigun bigots? Discriminated against merely for standing up for oneself and one’s identity? How is it inclusive to deny equality to people who CCW/EDC to protect their families by discriminating against them, and treating them like subhumans? How is it sensible to ask such an obviously racist, fascist, bullying government to seize a monopoly on violence over this enlightened society– and to relinquish our only reasonable means of citizens’ protection to such a government, only then to sheepishly call men with guns when we are assaulted and mistreated by threatening murderers? What would MLK think (yes, cue “application for a handgun permit” and so forth…)? How is this empowering with equality? How is it not egregious hypocrisy of everything they stand for….
Well, sure, there’s a ton to unpack there– but the general point being that: a consistent tack must be taken that circles the wagons around our securing Constitutionally protected guaranteed CIVIL RIGHTS, and the equal access of all Americans to these civil rights via the Bill of Rights. This is not a schoolkids and lollipops from Camel Joe issue– hardly! It is the Last Great Struggle for Civil Rights and Equality… in a country that craves such fights, and lionizes such ideals as essential to our history and identity. And right now, these twerps are doing it slightly “better” (e.g., how do you get MLK’s relatives to bridge the civil rights legacy of securing and protecting rights, into an Opposite Land movement to erode, destroy, and subjugate civil rights?).
Like it or not, this struggle will not be won by a lack of creativity… by the lazy grunts of disgust at “the leftists!” and “libtards!” and “mentally ill Democrats!” and all the usual whiny, obvious virtriol about liberals and “us against them” divisive nonsense. I mean, we know this already… we know they will not listen to team fight song oaths, and we know the only people it galvanizes it us. The 2A fight gets won when it becomes a universal noble struggle that everyone wants to get on board with, because *it feels* like the right thing to do, whether or not they grasp the nuances of why the Teeth of the 2A matter to freedom. The feels… yep. Being right only gets you so far here, especially with a steady parade of murdered children.
That’s why antigun people have as much respect for your right to self defense as they do for an obnoxious, stinky smoker hacking up in “designated smoking section” 100yards away from normal, decent people who are smart enough to want to teach their kids activities that don’t purposefully murder them. Yeah… I know. But I’m telling ya… I’m around people who reflect that thinking all the time. They DO want to take your guns, and they DO believe that their kids are inherently unsafe because AR-15s exists. It’s pretty nutty… it’s also hard to take seriously. But if they do, we must.
Anyhoo, thinking aloud… following this lawsuit, definitely….
Be safe. Save America– carry your gun!
RJR is one of the best stocks I’ve ever bought. Ever increasing stock price along with nice quarterly dividends.
I feel bad for these parents who are duped into these lawsuits during the most painful thing in their life. There is a ton of legal precedence saying they are going to have their case dismissed, their lawyers know this, and they don’t care cause they know they are going to get paid.
The people telling these parents everything will be okay and they won’t lose a ton of money are flat out predators. I wish the judges in this case could also tack on “Your case is dismissed…Oh, and since your lawyer lied to you, you are not obligated to pay them.”
Good. Now the Courts can order the parents to pay the legal fees of those engaged in lawful commerce.
I wonder what causes of action were raised in filing the suit?
Highly likely that the suit will be dismissed pre-trial, given the laws of the land.
The next people that are hit and injured/killed by a drunk driver should sue the manufacturer of the vehicle and the dealership that sold it.
Forrest Gump was right – Stupid is as Stupid does.