While sorting through the news Tuesday morning, two seemingly unrelated stories ended up in adjacent tabs.
First…
Sandy Hook lawsuit against AR-15 maker could actually reach the Supreme Court
But the state supreme court ruled plaintiffs’ suit can proceed under Connecticut’s unfair trade practices law. Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that Bushmaster’s advertising essentially encouraged customers and others to use their XM15 rifles — the type used by Lanza — for criminal purposes.
Leaving aside how Bushmaster is responsible for the use of a firearm it sold to a dealer who sold it to a woman who had it taken by someone else after she was murdered…
Alleged: Advertising the rifle as suitable for mass murder.
Which brings me to the second article…
Study: ‘Assault Weapons’ and Magazine Bans Do Not Lower Homicide Rates
[Lead study author Michael Spiegel] observed, “Laws regulating the sale of assault weapons are unlikely to have a large impact on homicide rates, because these weapons are used in only a very small proportion of homicides. The vast majority of firearm homicides in the United States are committed with handguns.”
Hardly news. The government discovered the same thing after the federal “Assault Weapon Ban” of ’94. And that very thing had been predicted by numerous people when the bill was being debated.
But the juxtaposition of the stories struck me.
Pantytwisters: Eek! Bushmaster is advertising mass murder tactical death machines and encouraging us to go out and kill everything!
Everyone else: Didn’t work.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
(More Tip Jar Options) |
