[Magdalen] exerpt of article from NYer mag online today
Lynn Ronkainen
houstonklr at gmail.com
Wed Jun 22 19:15:47 UTC 2016
This is snipped from a larger article citing this week's failure to consider
gun legislation, it is actually very revealing about the subtly of changes
in gun laws and purchasing since 2000. And so much is stoked by fear
mongering, bigotry and 'get it while you can' thinking....
O that this lawsuit be able to move forward and focus the eye of the nation
on an attempted 'push back'.
Lynn
But, on Monday, as the Senate vanished into the bog of gun politics, the
most serious legal challenge to American gun violence was unfolding not in
Washington but in a state court in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Parents of Sandy
Hook victims, and one survivor, have brought a novel lawsuit against
Remington Arms, which manufactured the AR-15-style Bushmaster rifle used in
the attack, that could pry open the inner workings of the gun company, much
as lawsuits against tobacco companies exposed their knowledge of the risks
of cancer and their efforts to market to children. Unlike the plaintiffs in
previous lawsuits against gun companies, the parents are not seeking to
prove that the gun had an unsafe design or was distributed in ways that lead
to illegal black-market sales; they accuse Remington of "unfair trade
practices" for placing advertisements that marketed it to civilians as "the
ultimate combat weapons system." In effect, they are accusing Remington of
lying to customers.
This is an acutely vulnerable point. In my piece "Making a Killing,"
published in the magazine this week, I looked at the manufacturing and
marketing of guns and their many associated businesses, which include
training, insurance, children's products, ammunition, magazine
subscriptions, and holsters. The gun industry is masterly at marketing fear;
it takes the kernels of anxiety that people feel in the era of ISIS and mass
shootings and puffs them into full-blown panic. Gun companies have thrived
in the nervous, polarized post-9/11 era. The fear of attack and the prospect
of new gun-control laws have become reliable new sources of business. In its
2013 annual report, Remington Arms described "increased customer concern
relating to more restrictive government regulation" as "a significant
long-term opportunity to expand our customer base."
Many thought that the Remington case would be dismissed before it ever got
to a courtroom, because gunmakers have been shielded, since 2005, by the
Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (P.L.C.A.A.), a law signed by
George W. Bush that immunizes gunmakers from lawsuits to a degree that is
unprecedented in American capitalism. As I note in my magazine piece, Mike
Fifer, the C.E.O. of Sturm, Ruger & Co. has said the law is "probably the
only reason we have a U.S. firearms industry anymore." In asking to have the
case thrown out, Remington's attorney, James Vogts, asked, "If the
P.L.C.A.A. does not prohibit this case against Remington Arms, what kind of
case does it prohibit?"
But the plaintiffs in the Sandy Hook case believe that they are not
precluded from filing their case in state court, and Connecticut Superior
Court Judge Barbara N. Bellis has allowed preliminary steps to proceed. On
Monday, the parents' lawyer Joshua Koskoff accused Remington of making
"negligent choices" that serve, in effect, to "entrust the most notorious
killing machine to the public and to continue to do so in the face of
mounting evidence of its association of mass murder of civilians." He said
that the company, according to its own advertising, considered the gun
appropriate for use "in the fields of Vietnam and in the streets of
Fallujah." But it sold the same weapon to a mother in Connecticut, whose
troubled son, Adam Lanza, used it to kill at Sandy Hook. Koskoff asked, "How
did it get there?"
One of the biggest things at stake is discovery: If the case goes forward,
will plaintiffs, and the press, be allowed to see internal documents about
how Remington marketed its weapons using the Internet and video games?
Bellis has ordered discovery to begin, but Remington lawyers have said that
they will seek to bar files from public view. Bellis has until mid-October
to decide what will happen to the case.
website: www.ichthysdesigns.com
When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I have not a
single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything You gave me."
attributed to Erma Bombeck
"Either Freedom for all or stop talking about Freedom at all" from a talk
by Richard Rohr
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