Two years ago yesterday Adam Lanza began his morning by killing his mother as she lay in her bed. He then he drove over to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Prior to blowing his own diseased brains out he murdered 20 students, babies really and six staff members. He was able to run up the body count quickly because he was using his mom's Bushmaster XM15-E25. She had been teaching him to shoot over the years so he would learn "discipline and responsibility."
According to a Wall Street Journal story written by Joseph De Avila Bushmaster Firearms International is owned by the Remington Outdoor Company. It is, in turn, owned by Cerberus Capital Management. Shortly after Lanza ran amok Cerberus claimed they would sell Remington, but the article says Cerberus claims they haven't found a buyer yet. In addition there is an outfit named Camfour which distributes Bushmaster products to retailers such as Riverview Gun Sales of East Windsor, Connecticut. Riverview Gun Sales is where Nancy Lanza legally purchased the murder weapon.
Now, 24 months after the nightmare at Sandy Hook, all those different entities are named in a law suit filed by nine of the victims families. De Avila writes that the paper work has been handed over to a state marshal who has 30 days to serve the defendants.
De Avila quotes Jillian Soto, the sister of Victoria Soto who died that day, as saying, "We keep seeing this happen. We keep seeing mass shootings at schools. And something has to be done." He also quoted her brother, Carlos who said, "If nothing is going to change federally we might as well try in court."
He is right, nothing is going to change on the federal level as long as the National Rifle Association bribes and extorts member of congress with boat loads of money and vile threats. Nothing is going to change because huge numbers of Americans have a sick and overpowering fetish when it comes to firearms. If you even hint at removing something like a Bushmaster XM15 from store shelves they whirl like dervishes and howl to the moon.
De Avila cited Remington's CEO, George Kollitides as handing out the same old bull about a year ago in an interview. He fell back on the, "it isn't the gun's fault" excuse which we hear ad nauseam from those who feel they can't get an erection with out a weapon somewhere close at hand. He ultimately claimed Adam Lanza and Adam Lanza alone was responsible for the butchery that bright winter day.
Yes, it isn't our fault the kid was bat shit crazy. His mother should have known better.
Well she didn't and she ended up being the first to go. Hell, she was so oblivious it has been widely reported her Christmas present to Adam that year was a gift certificate to a gun store. If the deadly little geek hadn't gone off his nut when he did he could have cashed it in for a weapon with practically no questions asked. That is what Jimmy Holmes did in Colorado. He was as mad as a hatter on acid and he was able to arm himself better than many guerrilla armies. So did Seung-hiu Cho before he opened fire at Virginia Tech. The list goes on and on.
De Avila says the suit will charge that everyone involved with the manufacture, distribution and sale of the weapon, "...sold a firearm unfit for civilian use." In other words, if General Dynamics were to sell a M1A2 Abrams tank to Ted Nugent they would be just as culpable as he would be after he used it to assault the Democratic National Convention.
The attorney representing the plaintiffs was quoted as saying, "There is so much ample evidence of the inability of the civilian world to control these weapons that it is no longer reasonable to entrust them for that purpose. How many massacres do there have to be before that is?"
Unfortunately the answer to his question isn't known at this time, because it is painfully obvious we haven't gotten there yet.
No other industrialized nation in the world would put up with this madness. Are they any less free than we are?
In fact, in the final analysis, we can seriously question how free Americans really are if millions of citizens are too frightened to leave home without a gun. That doesn't sound like freedom, but it does reek of chaos and anarchy, not to mention clinical paranoia.
Will the law suit be successful? Probably not. Even if it is initially won, all those corporate lawyers, backed by an unlimited supply of cash, will drag it through an unending appeals process and eventually they'll find a judge somewhere to overturn the verdict.
In every sense of the word America is addicted to guns.
And like all addictions it will eventually kill us. Just ask the people in Newtown, Connecticut. They have the grave stones to prove it.
sic vita est
12-15-14
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