Rachel Maddow calls out yet another corporatist freedom obstructing law
This story illustrates clearly that our legal system is skewed in favor of corporations, the wealthy, and the plutocracy. We have have allowed our country to be owned by a few. We sold it for nothing. We sold it for the lack of our engagement in the body politic that allowed a few to codify into law the demise of our economic, social, and political freedom.
Last night Rachel Maddow had a piece on stories/issues that should outrage us all. The one that stood out was the story of Jessica Ghawi’s parents. Jessica Ghawi was gunned down and killed in the Aurora Colorado massacre. Her parents unsuccessfully sued the gun retailers who made the gun products that killed their daughter.
Because the parents lost the case, they were ordered to pay approximately one quarter million dollars to the gun makers who sold the bullets that were sold to James Holmes, the perpetrator of the massacre. According to Thomson Reuters,
Senior U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch of the District of Colorado dismissed Sandy and Lonnie Phillips’ suit against four websites because Colorado and federal laws shield firearms and ammunition sellers from liability based on a customer’s wrongful acts. Phillips et al. v. Lucky Gunner LLC et al., No. 14–cv–02822, 2015 WL 1499382 (D. Colo. Mar. 27, 2015).
The judge also ordered the couple, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi died along with 11 other people during Holmes’ July 2012 shooting rampage, to pick up the legal bills for defendants Lucky Gunner LLC and Sportsman’s Guide.
In doing so, the judge followed a subsection of a Colorado law requiring plaintiffs to pay fees and costs to defendants in cases against gun and ammunition sellers.
On April 10, Lucky Gunner and Sportsman’s Guide filed motions for more than $220,000 in attorney fees and costs.
One of the other defendants, Brian Platt, who does business as BTP Arms, also filed a motion for legal fees seeking more than $33,000.
These laws are created to scare Americans from challenging corporations for their misdeeds. It is the ultimate legal manner to quell our freedom. Those that continue to protect the American plutocracy do it at their peril.