Sure. Their argument is that these eye-rollingly lame tacticool ads:
are militaristic marketing of military weapons to people who aren't in the military. And by selling to people in this way, the company is saying that it's OK to go out and use them as if you're in the military, which they imply is the indiscriminate murder of children.
This, they argue, is negligent entrustment, along the lines of
- A bartender giving "one for the road" to an obviously drunk person who's walking out of the bar jingling his car keys.
- A school bus company that hires a driver with four DUIs on his record.
- A construction company that puts an untrained person in the cab of a crane with a wrecking ball.
One of the plaintiffs has said “I think that who they are focusing on in their advertisements are young men that maybe do not feel manly and secure, and who are disenfranchised with their lives and maybe feel powerless.”
The whole thing is ridiculous. The bucket of whale chum who murdered those kids didn't even buy the rifle. He wasn't responding to advertising. We have no way of knowing if he ever saw the ads in the first place. He stole the rifle from the safe his mother kept it in, after he murdered her. The advertising, while stupid and distasteful, was in no way related to anything that happened, any of the crimes he committed.
Moreover, negligent entrustment has a very high legal standard. It's absurd to argue that a company, selling a product that is legal, especially one that is only sold after a background check outsourced to the state, somehow KNOWS that the customer intends to commit a crime with it.
The entire basis of their case is the assertion that ALL persons who buy firearms intend to use them to illegally kill other people. Bushmaster/Remington MUST have known this person (not even a customer!) would commit a crime with their product, because the only reason to have a rifle like this is to commit a crime with it.
Really. That's their argument.
The suit is being allowed to proceed. What will probably happen is the plaintiffs will lose, and be liable for the defendants' legal fees.