Last week during the Democratic debate, candidate Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor called for stricter gun laws, referencing the name of Aurora theater shooting victim Jessica Ghawi. Her parents, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips attended the Tuesday debate as guests of O’Malley. And the next day, they appeared on national TV interviews and stood next to O’Malley at a rally where the candidate called for the end to legal immunity for gun dealers.
The Colorado family described their lost legal battle against the online company that sold ammunition to James Holmes, the convicted theater shooter. Ghawi, was one of 12 people killed in the July 2012 attack. Her parents had sued four online retailers that provided bullets, gun magazines and body armor alleged to have been used in the shooting. They accused the retailers of selling the items without concern about the mental fitness of the buyer or the items’ intended use.
The retailers “established and operated businesses which attracted — and catered to — dangerous persons such as Holmes,” the complaint argued, “and yet they failed … to reasonably screen to prevent such dangerous people from obtaining arms.”
But in September, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled state and federal laws protect ammunition sellers from such lawsuits and he dismissed the case. Then Judge Matsch ordered that the couple pay $203,000 to the defendant gun shops for their attorney’s fees.
Contrast this injustice with a jury award late Tuesday of more than $5 million in damages to two police officers who were severely wounded with a pistol that a local gun shop sold to a straw buyer in 2009. Officer Bryan Norberg was shot in the face and Officer Graham Kunisch in the head and body, leaving him with severe brain damage and a destroyed eye.
The two officers and the City of Milwaukee sued Badger Guns, arguing that its employees either knew the sale was illegal or were grossly negligent in allowing it to proceed.
The jury took only nine hours after a two-week trial in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, to find that the store had been seriously negligent in selling the gun when there were signs that the ostensible purchaser was fronting for an 18-year-old who accompanied him to the store.
In May 2009, Jacob Collins, 21, bought a Taurus semiautomatic pistol at Badger Guns on behalf of Julius Burton, 18 – too young to legally purchase a gun. Burton helped select the weapon. Weeks later, Burton used the gun to shoot the two Milwaukee police officers. He is serving 80 years for attempted murder, and Collins has served two years for the illegal purchase.
Officer Norberg was emotional and felt vindicated by the verdict, said the chief lawyer for the officers, Patrick O. Dunphy. Mr. Kunisch, who has retired, was pleased but barely showed it, Mr. Dunphy said, a result of his brain injury.
The suit was closely watched by gun-control advocates, the firearms industry and legal scholars because it involved a rare test before a jury of the responsibility of gun sellers for the criminal use of their products. It was only the second time in the last decade that a civil lawsuit alleging negligent sales by a gun shop reached a jury.
More than 30 states — and Congress, in 2005 — have passed laws barring most lawsuits against gun makers and sellers for the way that buyers use their products. Sadly, the Phillips were unable to add their case to the winner’s list.
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