Greenwich Time:

NEWTOWN – The judge in the lawsuit brought by 10 families against the maker of the gun used in the Sandy Hook massacre has denied Remington’s latest request to forego the exchange of pre-trial evidence.

The order by Judge Barbara Bellis is another in a series of incremental victories for the Sandy Hook families, who argue that Remington is liable for negligently entrusting an AR-15-type rifle to a civilian, resulting in the deaths of 20 first-graders and six educators.

Bellis’ ruling on Friday is the second time in as many months that the judge has denied a request by Remington to forego the exchange of evidence. In mid-September, the judge said she would hear Remington’s argument about why the case should be dismissed in December 2017, and not before.

The judge’s Friday order follows an objection filed by the families earlier in the week, which called gunmaker’s request to rearrange the pre-trial schedule and avoid the exchange of evidence ‘impractical,’ ‘unfair’ and ‘self-serving.’

In other words, Remington went back to the same judge that illegally asserted her authority before, and begged again to keep from having to open their books to the communists.  But since judge Barbara Bellis is a communist and traitor herself, she once again denied Remington’s request.

Another way of saying it is that she is willing to postpone the date of hearing the question of whether the case should even be in court to begin with until December, but unwilling to delay “discovery,” or in other words, she will happily help along harm of Remington before it’s even decided whether there should be a case.  And clearly when she decides that question, it won’t go in Remington’s favor.

We used to do things with traitors that judge Barbara Bellis deserves herself.  But we’re too civil for that these days, so we let traitors live among us and even adjudicate illegal cases.  Let’s be clear.  Even something like impeaching her could have stopped this abortion, but the state senate and house don’t have the balls to do something like that.

Our country is in one hell of a fix.

Prior:

Discovery In The Sandy Hook Families Versus Remington Case

Judge Barbara Bellis: Update On The Sandy Hook Families’ Lawsuit Of Remington

Judge Barbara Bellis Says Sandy Hook Families’ Lawsuit Against Remington Goes Forward

America Is About To See How Guns Used In Mass Shootings Are Marketed:

When family members and survivors of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School filed suit against Bushmaster in December 2014, it seemed a lot like a lost cause. After all, a 2005 federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) was designed to prevent people from holding gun manufacturers accountable for wrongful deaths. Even last week, when a Connecticut judge shot down a motion to dismiss the suit, experts said she was just delaying an inevitable dismissal later down the line.

But then last Tuesday, that same judge, Barbara Bellis, of Connecticut’s Superior Court, issued another ruling that determined the suit would be more than symbolic. Specifically, she said the discovery process could begin immediately and set a tentative trial date for April 3, 2018. A jury hearing the case would be historic, but Katherine Mesner-Hage, an attorney for the plaintiffs, says that getting the gun company to open its books for discovery is arguably just as huge.

That’s because she and her co-council have constructed a creative PLCAA exemption, claiming, in essence, that the gun Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook massacre was specifically marketed as a killing machine. As part of discovery, they’ll dig through the gunmaker’s internal company memos and try to prove that the company was negligent.

I spoke to Mesner-Hage about how the gun industry became so protected from civil suits, what she and the other lawyers for the Sandy Hook survivors hope to find in discovery, and how their legal strategy is similar to the one used against Big Tobacco in the 90s.

VICE: What are you hoping to find in discovery that will be such a big deal?
Katherine Mesner-Hage: We’re looking for documents, and we’re looking to depose key people at Remington especially, but also at the distributor and the retail level. We’re asking for internal memos about how to market the AR-15 and how to market specifically the patrolman’s carbine, which is the one that Adam Lanza used.

We want to depose the head of marketing. We want to talk to the people at the company who are making the decisions about marketing. That’s how we build our case, although the marketing speaks for itself on one level. This is our chance to kind of peel back the curtain and see what’s really going on. One of the things about discovery in general is that you don’t know what you’re looking for before you start.

Has any other case against a gun company gotten to the discovery stage since PLCAA was passed? What are the broader implications of this recent decision?
I can’t think of any case that’s gotten to the point in which discovery was open in the post-PLCAA era.

Nothing good can come from this.  As I have said before, the Sandy Hook Families aren’t entitled to that information and the case has no merit.

I know what they’re after.  As I have documented before, the law protects firearms manufacturers, but excepts cases where there is “negligent entrustment.”  I recall thinking as I read this, “this is an oddball exception.”  The reason that it is odd is that firearms manufacturers don’t sell to customers.  They sell to distributors who then sell to stores (some manufacturers sell directly online, but go through a local FFL, e.g., Rock River Arms, LaRue Tactical, etc.).

They are thinking that this exception, the negligent entrustment clause, has not been tested in court and still need fleshing out as to its real definition.  But I don’t agree with lawsuits against gun manufacturers any more than I agree with Tobacco companies being sued over lung cancer.  Evil actions such as was perpetrated that day redound to federal headship in Adam, original sin, and the volitional decision to commit wicked acts.  Marketing has nothing to do with it.

Back in 2005 when I was headed for a professional conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I left Charlotte, N.C. that day and headed towards Western North Carolina.  Instead of driving one of those put-put-put cars companies like to put you in, the car rental agency apologized and told me that the only car left on the lot for me that day was a brand new 2005 Ford Mustang GT.  I recalled laughing out loud to the puzzlement of the sales clerk.  Little did she know, I thought.

I drove towards Murphy, N.C., and past the NOC (Nantahala Outdoor Center), and on the curvy roads past all of those TVA dams, curve after curve after curve, in a brand new Ford Mustang GT.  It was a great day, that Sunday, and I exceeded the posted speed limit by a wide margin.  A wide margin.  But I didn’t do anything unsafe, and I didn’t cause additional risk for anyone else on the road.

Or perhaps I’m lying or simply a bad judge of risk.  If I had harmed anything or anyone that day, it wouldn’t have been a great day, and I would have been responsible for it.  Ford’s marketing of its 2005 Mustang GT had nothing whatsoever to do with my decision to exceed the posted speed limit.

And Adam Lanza is in hell for what he did since he didn’t know Jesus Christ as his savior and advocate before the Father.  I’m certain that the parents have bitterness and heartache over what happened.  But they’re taking it out on the wrong person, the wrong company, the wrong workers, the wrong objects.  They are poorly trained, theologically and philosophically, and besides that badly mistaken that marketing carbines to young males is somehow responsible for the deaths of their loved ones (witness Charles Whitman who used a bolt action rifle, the best option for his choice of locations).

These parents are in danger of harm to their own souls with this continued blame of the wrong people.  The lawyers are going to get rich, and the judge is a wicked woman and will receive her just recompense eventually, and perhaps sooner.

Prior:

Judge Barbara Bellis Says Sandy Hook Families’ Lawsuit Against Remington Goes Forward

Judge Barbara Bellis: Update On The Sandy Hook Families’ Lawsuit Of Remington

In Judge Barbara Bellis Says Sandy Hook Families’ Lawsuit Of Remington Goes Forward, we discussed the traitorous actions of Judge Barbara Bellis by blatant, intentional flouting of a federal law that forbids lawsuits against gun manufacturers based on potential criminal actions by users of those guns.  Barbara knows better than the U.S. House and Senate.  CNN has an update of this case.

Hartford Courant:

Superior Court judge has denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit accusing gun makers and sellers of liability in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, saying the broad immunity granted to the firearms industry does not strip the court of jurisdiction to hear the claim.

While the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act generally insulates gun companies from liability, Judge Barbara Bellis said the law could be used to attack the legal sufficiency of the plaintiffs’ claims, but not to have the case thrown out at this early stage.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs – nine victims’ families and an administrator who was shot and survived – declared the ruling a major win, as victories against firearms companies are extremely rare. But the ruling does not preclude the defendants from reasserting their claims of immunity under federal law in a future motion.

The lawsuit accuses the Remington Arms Co. and other defendants of negligently selling to civilians a weapon the plaintiffs claim is suitable only for the military and law enforcement. At a hearing in February, Bridgeport lawyer Josh Koskoff argued against dismissing the case, saying the lawsuit’s claim of “negligent entrustment” is an exception to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

But Bellis ruled on a narrower issue, agreeing with the plaintiffs that she has jurisdiction to continue with the case, but not ruling on whether the federal law blocks the plaintiffs from pursuing their claim.

“At this juncture,” Bellis wrote, “the court need not and will not consider the merits of the plaintiffs’ negligent entrustment theory.”

Well, there may be a little more to what the judge concluded than that.  According to the AP, she concluded that the law “does not prevent lawyers for the families of Sandy Hook victims from arguing that the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle is a military weapon and should not have been sold to civilians.”  Selling an AR-15 to civilians is their equivalent of “negligent entrustment.”  The judge found that the lawyers may indeed argue that, and that she shouldn’t rule at the present on the appropriateness of said argument.  But since this is all covered by a law, let’s see what the law says.

(5) Businesses in the United States that are engaged in interstate and foreign commerce through the lawful design, manufacture, marketing, distribution, importation, or sale to the public of firearms or ammunition products that have been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce are not, and should not, be liable for the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse firearm products or ammunition products that function as designed and intended.

(6) The possibility of imposing liability on an entire industry for harm that is solely caused by others is an abuse of the legal system, erodes public confidence in our Nation’s laws, threatens the diminution of a basic constitutional right and civil liberty, invites the disassembly and destabilization of other industries and economic sectors lawfully competing in the free enterprise system of the United States, and constitutes an unreasonable burden on interstate and foreign commerce of the United States.

(7) The liability actions commenced or contemplated by the Federal Government, States, municipalities, and private interest groups and others are based on theories without foundation in hundreds of years of the common law and jurisprudence of the United States and do not represent a bona fide expansion of the common law. The possible sustaining of these actions by a maverick judicial officer or petit jury would expand civil liability in a manner never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, by Congress, or by the legislatures of the several States. Such an expansion of liability would constitute a deprivation of the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed to a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

(8) The liability actions commenced or contemplated by the Federal Government, States, municipalities, private interest groups and others attempt to use the judicial branch to circumvent the Legislative branch of government to regulate interstate and foreign commerce through judgments and judicial decrees thereby threatening the Separation of Powers doctrine and weakening and undermining important principles of federalism, State sovereignty and comity between the sister States.

It’s difficult to imagine a clearer statement than that.  The Congress intended for all judicial actions against firearms manufacturers to fail, excepting what they called “negligent entrustment.”  Further into the law, one reads just what that means, and it is obviously intended only to apply to known cases of sales to criminals who intended to perpetrate crimes with those weapons, instances where the seller knew or should have known the intent (presumably because he heard it directly from the buyer).

It doesn’t include all sales of certain categories of firearms to certain categories of the population, such as AR-15s sold to civilians.  Additionally, the notion that because one wants to purchase an AR-15 means that he wants to perpetrate some sort of crime is prima facie absurd.  We’ve discussed the fact that there is virtually no distinction between civilian and military firearms.  AR-15s are currently ubiquitous in America, and rarely are they used to perpetrate crimes.  Pistols on the battlefield and in the homes of America look the same because they are the same, unless one wants to point out that most of the time civilians own better weapons.

The U.S. Marine Corps took Benelli shotguns into Now Zad for house clearing, and the same Marine Corps took Remington 700s and Winchester bolt action guns into Iraq as designated marksman and sniper rifles.  Excluding fully automatic crew served weapons (along with the fact that M4s are selective fire), the only firearms I can find still in considerable use among the civilian population that isn’t in use in the military is the revolver, which is a shame given the beautiful wheel guns being made at the Smith & Wesson performance center.

The case is absurd, and the judge should certainly have dismissed it with prejudice.  And take note of one of the very reasons stated by the Congress for protection of firearms manufacturers, i.e., maverick judicial officer[s].  Judge Barbara Bellis is a maverick judicial officer (which I take to include both prosecutors and judges).  She is allowing her political views to cloud her judgment.

Uncle thinks this argument is a losing argument.  I guess I have to disagree.  In a dysfunctional judicial system, anything can happen.  It should be a losing argument.  David French thinks we should watch this one carefully.  I agree.  Right along with impeaching the judge (or if you wish, tar and feathers is a good approach too).