Lawsuit against Seller and Gun Maker Demands Intolerance and Discrimination

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Family members sue Lubbock man and gunmaker a year after deadly mass shooting in Midland-Odessa,” The Dallas Morning News reported Saturday. “The suit says Kentucky-based Anderson Manufacturing ’should have known’ of illegal gun sales.”

After being fired from his job, the perpetrator, a “prohibited person” forbidden by law to possess a firearm, went on a killing rampage targeting police and random victims. Left unsaid is how the company “should have known.” Instead, the plaintiffs are insisting that the court ignores the law and that the defendants be held liable for standards that are impossible to meet.

First, there is the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. According to Congressional Research Service, “The PLCAA generally bars lawsuits in federal or state court against firearm manufacturers, distributors, and dealers when a third party acquires a firearm from that distribution chain and uses it for criminal ends.” It does not protect against “product liability actions stemming from design or manufacture defects,” nor against “actions brought against a manufacturer or seller who knowingly violated a state or federal statute ‘applicable to’ the sale or marketing of a firearm or ammunition.”

How Anderson Manufacturing “should have known” that a private party who legally acquired one of their products would then transfer it to the killer is not explained, because it can’t be. It would require psychic powers. The plaintiffs and their lawyer are looking to blame a party with deeper pockets than the dead killer’s “estate,” and they want the court to ignore the separation of powers and usurp authority by legislating from the bench. They’re also trying to end private sales and overturn PLCAA, major gun-grabber goals as per the Democrat Party platform:

To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy.

That’s parroted by the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket.

As for those background checks, the real motive isn’t hard to find. It’s actually flat-out admitted in the National Institute of Justice “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies”:

Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…

Then there’s the matter of the killer having previously failed to pass a NICS check. The real question here is how it’s a good idea for someone “legally” deemed too dangerous to be trusted with a gun to be trusted to stalk freely among the rest of us.

As for the private seller, due process should apply if anything resembling the Bill of Rights still applies. Instead, per Everything Lubbock, his home has been raided, his firearms have been confiscated, and the feds have asked a judge to “permanently forfeit” them – all without a conviction for a crime.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer alleges the seller should have known the killer was ineligible to own a gun because he had “two teardrop tattoos on his face.”

First of all, there is no state or federal law prohibiting people with tattoos from owning guns, nor has further legislation established what body placement, content, or artistic expressions should be disqualifiers. Not content to eviscerate the Second Amendment, the First is now deemed fair game.

True, tear tattoos would be outside the experience of and off-putting to many private individuals, some of whom would no doubt choose to avoid anyone so inked. But imagine the “progressive” attacks against “intolerance” and worse, and the lawsuits that would result if gun (or any) manufacturers used that as criteria to discriminate and deny purchases of lawful products.

“What about those tattoos?” lawyer John Sloan says the seller should have asked. “Why do you have those?”

Closing the Tattoo Loophole is a standard he and the plaintiffs really want to advocate? Is that something Sloan would presume to ask a potential client? Gun owners tired of nosy ignoramuses demanding to know “why” they “need” this or that have an answer for grabbers like Sloan. It begins with “Because” and ends with “that’s why.”

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.