BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (Reuters) - The maker of the assault rifle used to kill 26 children and educators at a Connecticut school in 2012 argued on Monday that attempts to limit the sale of such weapons to civilians are best left to lawmakers and not families of the victims who sued the company.
A lawyer for Bushmaster Firearms LLC, which manufactures the AR-15 that 20-year-old Adam Lanza used in his attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, told a Connecticut judge the 2005 federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act prohibited the suit.
"It's not the role of this court or perhaps a jury to decide whether civilians as a broad class of people are not appropriate to own these kinds of firearms," James Vogts, an attorney for Bushmaster's parent company, Remington Arms, told a courtroom so packed that more than a dozen spectators were watching the hearing standing in a hallway outside the court.
The families of nine people who died in the attack sued Bushmaster in 2014 in Connecticut Superior Court in Bridgeport. The lawsuit said the AR-15 should never have been sold to thegunman's mother, Nancy Lanza, because it had no civilian purpose.
"It was Remington's choice to entrust the most notorious American killing machine to the public," said the families' attorney Joshua Koskoff. "They know where it’s going to end up ... in an environment it was never meant for, an environment that has proven time and again to be not safe for these weapons."
Judge Barbara Bellis heard arguments on Monday, eight days after a gunman armed with another model of assault rifle killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The wholesaler and retailer involved in the sale of the Sandy Hook gun also said the PLCAA protects them from lawsuits having to do with the gun's sale.
Boston College Law School professor Robert Bloom said the federal law gave the companies a strong defense.
"They (the families) have an uphill battle, but given the climate and the judge's previous rulings, it seems that she is sympathetic to the argument," Bloom said.
The U.S. Senate's strongest push in years to tighten gun controls was likely to fall short on Monday. Lawmakers scrambled to forge a compromise that might keep firearms away from people on terrorism watch lists by later this week.
Adam Lanza began his Dec. 14, 2012, attack by shooting his mother dead in their home and ended it by turning his gun on himself as he heard police sirens approach.
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Howard Goller)
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