In attempting to go around the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in his play to sue the firearms industry for the crimes committed by the 2012 Sandy Hook mass murderer, an attorney representing the victims claimed that the public is “notoriously incompetent” and “not capable of handling [property] properly.”
Attorney Joshua D. Koskoff argues that marketing a firearm in terms of what it can do—shoot bullets, for example, for self-defense—violates Connecticut’s Unfair Trade Practices Act and somehow constitutes an act of “negligent entrustment.” Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis said she will decide within 60 days whether the suit can proceed.
If the suit goes forward, it could set a new high-water mark for lawyers’ duplicity and contempt for the law. It could also open the floodgates to the kind of litigation that threatened to drive the entire U.S. firearms industry out of business just 15 years ago.
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