Is a Gun Maker to Blame for Sandy Hook?

The families of nine people murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, plus a survivor of the massacre, are suing Bushmaster, the North Carolina company that made the semiautomatic rifle Adam Lanza used in the attack. The lawsuit also names as defendants the weapon's distributor and the East Windsor, Connecticut, gun store that sold it to Nancy Lanza, the killer's mother. Although none of these businesses broke any laws, the plaintiffs argue that they are guilty of "negligent entrustment" because they made a gun with no legitimate civilian uses available to the general public. Joshua Koskoff, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, told The Wall Street Journal "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 to [civilians]."