Bankruptcy: The New Gun Control

      

Remington, an iconic gun maker, filed for bankruptcy on Monday. The Second Amendment cannot save the firm (it is reorganizing, not liquidating, due to $1 billion in debt it cannot pay).

The company has more than one business problem. They sold guns with defective triggers, and  settled a massive class action lawsuit filed by gun purchasers.

But Remington also makes the Bushmaster AR-15, the weapon of choice by mass killers. That gun was used in Florida this week.

Parents of slain children from Sandy Hook Elementary have a case pending against Remington before the Connecticut state supreme court. 

They are using tort law (think of negligence law) to go after the gun maker. 

Using a century-old common law rule— negligent entrustment— they are arguing that Remington should have foreseen that a psychopath would eventually buy their weapon of mass killing and turn it on—in this case—school children and teachers. The precedent they cite: A highly regarded opinion from Michigan in the 1800s holding a sling-shot maker liable for negligent entrustment of its eye-damaging weapon.

It’s not an easy proof at all—but the argument goes that unstable people, bent on revenge, will find a way to buy that gun. This is foreseeable.

Since the Connecticut case was argued just four months ago, we have had the Parkland, Florida massacre and the Sutherland Springs massacre. 

In the Texas shooting, lawyers have filed a lawsuit seeking $25 million in damages from the sporting goods store that sold a weapon to Devin Kelly.

The NRA has enacted a federal law—Congress enacted the law at the behest of the NRA— that limits liability for gun makers. But tort lawyers are finding creative ways around the law—ways that the NRA cannot stop. These lawyers are getting before juries and arguing that gun makers profit from killing and maiming police, children, teachers, and parents.

This approach will not end gun violence; but for now, a major gun maker is in deep financial trouble. Distributors are being targeted now by lawyers. It’s the closest thing America has to gun control.