The Brady Campaign told an Aurora shooting victim’s parents to file a hopeless suit against a gun dealer. The result was bankruptcy.
In 2012, Jessica Ghawi was murdered by James Holmes during a showing of The Dark Knight. She was one of twelve victims who died that day. In the aftermath, Ghawi’s mother, Sandy, filed a lawsuit against Lucky Gunner, the business that sold Holmes his weapons. Last week, Mother Jones ran a story on Phillips, who complained bitterly that her case had been thrown out:
Working for the Brady Campaign became a flurry of media appearances and meetings with politicians, police, and survivors. The Brady leadership also encouraged Lonnie and me to sue Lucky Gunner, the dealer that sold the stockpile of ammo to Jessi’s killer. We agreed that dealers should have to take some responsibility. Shouldn’t they have to vet a buyer of military-grade weaponry? Or a buyer of bullets en masse? The primary goal of our lawsuit was to make the gun dealer change its business practices — at a minimum, to ask for proof of identity and do a background check. The case would go on for three months, yet we never met the judge and never saw a courtroom. When the judge dismissed the suit, he said, “It is apparent that this case was filed to pursue the political purposes of the Brady Center.” In my opinion, the law that protects the gun dealers also bars people like us from our constitutional right to be heard.
It’s impossible to imagine the pain of a parent who has lost a child, so one cannot blame Phillips for attempting to channel her grief in this way. But what, one wonders, is the excuse of the Brady Campaign, which gave Phillips the idea, and told her erroneously that she had a shot? Clearly, everything that Lucky Gunner did was legal. Moreover, had the judge ruled against the store, he would have effectively been changing the law. A decision that found a gun dealer responsible for the actions of a third party would open the floodgates for similar lawsuits around the country. Of course the suit ended this way; it had to.
by Jay Caruso
