The ‘Shocking’ Law That Protects Gunmakers After Mass Shootings Like Las Vegas

There were some 22,000 people in the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas Sunday night when the gunman started firing. By the time police reached Stephen Paddock’s sniper’s perch on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, more than 500 people had been injured and at least 59 were killed, making it the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history. As law enforcement works to understand how and why this could have happened, a central question for those directly affected will be what, if any, legal recourse do they have? While legal experts say there are a range of entities who could find themselves liable — including the estate of the gunman himself — one group is all but off-limits: the manufacturers of the weapons used in the attack. The reason is a tangled web of lawsuits, legislation and lobbying. Starting in the 1980s, plaintiffs began to file civil claims against gun manufacturers and retail stores after violent incidents, winning some notable victories. In 1997, for example, the Florida Supreme Court upheld a jury verdict that found Kmart liable for selling a gun to an intoxicated person, who later shot his girlfriend, leaving her permanently quadriplegic. According to Timothy Lytton, a professor of law at Georgia State University and editor of the book Suing the Gun Industry, over thirty municipalities and the State of New York filed suits against the firearms industry to recoup costs of emergency personnel ...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Courts Guns Las Vegas las vegas shooting NRA Source Type: news