Anti-Gun Activists Lead a Couple to Ruin
In 2012, Jessica Ghawi was murdered by James Holmes during a showing of The Dark Knight. She was one of twelve victims who died that day. In the aftermath, Ghawi’s mother, Sandy, filed a lawsuit against Lucky Gunner, the business that sold Holmes his weapons. Last week, Mother Jones ran a story on Phillips, who complained bitterly that her case had been thrown out:
In 2012, Jessica Ghawi was murdered by James Holmes during a showing of The Dark Knight. She was one of twelve victims who died that day. In the aftermath, Ghawi’s mother, Sandy, filed a lawsuit against Lucky Gunner, the business that sold Holmes his weapons. Last week, Mother Jones ran a story on Phillips, who complained bitterly that her case had been thrown out:
Working for the Brady Campaign became a flurry of media appearances and meetings with politicians, police, and survivors. The Brady leadership also encouraged Lonnie and me to sue Lucky Gunner, the dealer that sold the stockpile of ammo to Jessi’s killer. We agreed that dealers should have to take some responsibility. Shouldn’t they have to vet a buyer of military-grade weaponry? Or a buyer of bullets en masse? The primary goal of our lawsuit was to make the gun dealer change its business practices — at a minimum, to ask for proof of identity and do a background check.
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It’s impossible to imagine the pain of a parent who has lost a child, so one cannot blame Phillips for attempting to channel her grief in this way. But what, one wonders, is the excuse of the Brady Campaign, which gave Phillips the idea, and told her erroneously that she had a shot? Clearly, everything that Lucky Gunner did was legal. Moreover, had the judge ruled against the store, he would have effectively been changing the law. A decision that found a gun dealer responsible for the actions of a third party would open the floodgates for similar lawsuits around the country. Of course the suit ended this way; it had to.
Phillips’s lawsuit was dismissed under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was meant to protect the firearms industry from politically motivated lawsuits in which the plaintiffs claim that gun manufacturers and dealers were responsible for the criminal acts of third parties beyond their control. And rightly so. As the recent campaign of Hillary Clinton shows, there is a concerted attempt underway in this country to usher gun control in by the back door and turn innocent people into criminals. Lucky Gunner was no more responsible for the actions of James Holmes than Honda was for the actions of Abdul Razak Ali Artan when he attempted to use his Civic to kill pedestrians at Ohio State University, and it no more deserves punishment. There are already consumer protections that make gun manufacturers liable in rare cases when their products malfunction. Naturally, they do not apply to misuse.
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It’s impossible to imagine the pain of a parent who has lost a child, so one cannot blame Phillips for attempting to channel her grief in this way. But what, one wonders, is the excuse of the Brady Campaign, which gave Phillips the idea, and told her erroneously that she had a shot? Clearly, everything that Lucky Gunner did was legal. Moreover, had the judge ruled against the store, he would have effectively been changing the law. A decision that found a gun dealer responsible for the actions of a third party would open the floodgates for similar lawsuits around the country. Of course the suit ended this way; it had to.
Phillips’s lawsuit was dismissed under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was meant to protect the firearms industry from politically motivated lawsuits in which the plaintiffs claim that gun manufacturers and dealers were responsible for the criminal acts of third parties beyond their control. And rightly so. As the recent campaign of Hillary Clinton shows, there is a concerted attempt underway in this country to usher gun control in by the back door and turn innocent people into criminals. Lucky Gunner was no more responsible for the actions of James Holmes than Honda was for the actions of Abdul Razak Ali Artan when he attempted to use his Civic to kill pedestrians at Ohio State University, and it no more deserves punishment. There are already consumer protections that make gun manufacturers liable in rare cases when their products malfunction. Naturally, they do not apply to misuse.