I saw Miguel’s post on the lawsuit being brought against American Outdoor Brands and the gun store that sold Cruz his rifle.
New, we know that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act is going to shield AOB from any liability.
That said, I hope to God a liberal judge doesn’t dismiss this before it begins because of the PLCCA. Why?
One word: Discovery.
The plaintiffs are saying this was foreseeable.
Fred and Jennifer Guttenberg, and Max Schachter “seek to hold defendants legally responsible for their complicity in the entirely foreseeable, deadly use of the assault-style weapons that they place on the market,” according to the lawsuit, filed in Broward Circuit Court.
That is how they are trying to get around the PLCCA. But Cruz was not a prohibited person and (presumably) passed a Form 4473 NICS check. So how was the retailer and AOB supposed to foresee this shooting?
Logic dictates that the plaintiffs will present all the evidence of red flags the Cruz sent up.
The defense will show how those red flags were not noticed by the retailer or AOB because Cruz was not a prohibited person and nothing appeared on his background check.
The Broward County School District and Sheriffs Department will be caught in the middle. All the evidence that the plaintiffs will need to bring to prove their side of the case is incriminatory against Broward County schools and sheriff.
In giving the plaintiffs rope to hang AOB, they will be putting nooses around the necks of school board and Sheriff Israel.
I will be fantastic to watch. I just hope the plaintiffs’ attorney doesn’t realize what he is doing and shuts this down before all the dirt on Sheriff Israel and the school board comes out in a court of law.
Unless this is the path to get evidence against Broward County School and the Sheriff’s Dept. before they become the hostile party…
But since the government has no duty to protect, wouldn’t they be able to weasel out of any discovery attempts?
it would be good to get all of the BSO and the school district’s dirty laundry fully out in public view; especially the safe schools crapola. But as I observed on the original post – they will most likely get off scott free due to ‘sovereign immunity’. At least if does get aired in public, enough folks just might wake up to what has been going on.
Not ‘discovery’ IMO, but almost certainly legal liability
Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that the plaintiffs will even bring up the shooter’s prior actions. They’re more likely to be taking the same route that the Sandy Hook suit against Remington took – the design of the weapon makes it inherently dangerous to the public and the manufacturer should have foreseen that their product would be used to affect a mass murder. Having the retailer as a co-defendant is secondary to their real purpose; to crack open the internal communications of AOB during discovery to find that one fudd, somewhere in the company, that wrote an email suggesting that they shouldn’t manufacture AR platforms because of the risk of a mass shooting. Find that and they have an argument for “foreseeable”.
The antis only need to get lucky once in one of these suits to put a serious hurt on the gun manufacturers and the recent history of SCOTUS doesn’t lend itself to a bad decision even being given certiorari.
I think, overall, we’re better off if this is dismissed early because of PLCCA.