Federal law says you cannot sell to those with a history of mental illness. Federal law also says that perscription records are confidential. Texax law states that mental health records are confidential. The deceased lied on her application.
I’m at a loss to see how Walmart, complying with all applicable federal and state laws, is liable. Perhaps this is another activist case seeking to legislate via the judicial branch. If so, it reeks.
And for the record, I support much stricter gun control laws than we have, second amendment be damned.
I saw this article yesterday. This looks like pure money grubbing by the victim’s parents. Guess what? Just because your daughter blew her brains out doesn’t mean you’re entitled to a check.
They should be lobbying the legislature, not suing Wal-mart.
Walmart had nothing to do with it. I love how the father said “they could have totally prevented this death”. Like she wouldn’t have found a different way to off herself? As tragic as the story is WM had nothing to do with it.
But a 25 million lawsuit? I hope WM grinds her into dust.
To me, it seems more like a way for the parents to dodge any sort of feelings of responsibility over what happened to their daughter. Any sort of monetary settlement is secondary. If they win the case, then it’s a certificate saying that it wasn’t their fault. It was Wal-Mart that let their child die.
I’m not saying that it’s all the parents fault either. I just don’t think that it’s all about the money
I understand that, I’m implying the same thinking by her parents may be a factor in the suit. Deflection of guilt would be another biggie.
Though when it comes to suicide, it’s much easier when a person can blame someone or something else, so the best I can do is offer guesses about thier motives.
And I’ll parrot the earlier poster that said if someone is going to kill themself, they find a way. I wonder if she slit her wrists or OD’d on the pills if the suit would be filed for filling the script or selling her the razor blades.
They also sell knives over in the kitchenwares area and clubs and more knives over in the sporting goods area. Why aren’t you outraged over that? A helluva lot more people have been killed through history by edged weapons and blunt impact weapons than by firearms.
Fascinating analysis. Well, more people throughout history have been killed by guns than by nuclear weapons, so we shouldn’t be concerned about nuclear proliferation, correct?
I completely agree the lawsuit is utterly without merit, but I’m uncomfortable assuming the parents are just in it for a buck. More likely they are simply emotionally devastated, and are grasping for reasons why their daughter did such a horrible thing. In such a distraught situation, I think (and hope) that unfairly blaming WalMart is more likely a desperate way to emotionally deal with the situation than them simply seeing dollar signs in their daughter’s grave.
The lawsuit needs to be smacked down of course, but let’s not only assume the worst of these folks who went through something so awful. As Metacom points out, the lawyers should probably be blamed for this one, for going ahead with the case.
But not lately. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (Centers for Disease Control) {large PDF} for the year 2001 (the most recent year that final statistics have been compiled), the total death rate by all assaults was 7.1 per 100,000. Of that number, 4.0 per 100,000 were caused by the deliberate use of firearms. That means that firearms were responsible for over 56% of all homicides, more than all other causes combined (knives, clubs, spears or damnable lies). In addition, another .3 per 100,000 were killed by the accidental discharge of firearms.
I hope you’re not trying to equate outrageous lawsuits with supposed “judicial activism”. Just because a judge hears a case involving illegitimate claims doesn’t mean that the judge is activist.
It’s the rare plaintiff who can “legislate via the judicial branch:” I don’t see how a case like this could count toward a general trend of “judicial activism”.
I was thinking more along the lines of a lawyer or law firm trying to get a judicial decision to promote something that rightly should be handled through the legislative branch. It might be that this lawyer wants to manuever around federal law protecting prescription information or Texas law protecting mental health records, and is trying to use the courts to change the law rather than the legislature.
A kitchenware knife has multiple purposes, the greater majority of which is helpful. Sporting goods knives are, I assume (not being a hunter), used in hunting, which I have no problem with.
Handguns have… uh… lemme think… a sole purpose which is to harm or maim or kill. Unless you use an unloaded handgun for a paperweight. I guess that could be helpful…
Yeah, I hate handguns. And I realize that they will probably never be outlawed. So, with that in mind, they should be sold at a firearms shop. Not a fucking WalMart.
I, too, hate handguns. Plus, I’ve never been in a Walmart, so I can’t say whether they do or do not sell handguns. The lawsuit pitted features an unstable woman who purchased a shotgun from Walmart. Shotguns, I believe, are also useful for hunting.
I would openly denounce any attempt by Congress to infringe on the right of States to form their own militias and arm those militias, as that would be unconstitutional. But in this case the Second Amendment doesn’t apply.