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BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – A lawsuit can go forward against the maker of the rifle used in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, a judge ruled Thursday. Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis said that a 2005 federal law protecting gun-makers from lawsuits does not prevent lawyers for the victims' families from arguing that the semi-automatic rifle is a military weapon and should not have been sold to civilians.

A lawsuit can go forward against the maker of the rifle used in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, a judge ruled Thursday. Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis said that a 2005 federal law protecting gun-makers from lawsuits does not prevent lawyers for the victims' families from arguing that the semi-automatic rifle is a military weapon and should not have been sold to civilians. Lanza, 20, killed 20 first-grade students and six educators on Dec. 14, 2012 with a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle that his mother had bought legally. Lanza killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their Newtown home with...

A teacher in the Connecticut town that was site of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history was arrested Wednesday after police say he brought a gun onto school grounds. Jason M. Adams, a teacher at Newtown Middle School, was carrying a concealed firearm for which he had a permit, Newtown police said. He was stopped inside the school by security personnel Wednesday before 9 a.m., the Newtown Public School District and police said. Newtown police said Adams faces a charge of possession of a weapon on school grounds, a Class D felony, according to Connecticut law. Adams,...

It's easy to forget the cold, dark days of winter, 2013. The horrific tragedy of Newtown had touched the hearts of the nation, and every news outlet -- every one -- was blaming the Second Amendment community for what happened there. GOA was receiving death threats -- not only against us, but against our children. Even Fox News was opining that the battle against Bloomberg's gun control was hopeless, as every news outlet spent every hour of the day predicting that our organization -- and the "gun manufacturers' lobby" [sic] in general -- would be absolutely and totally destroyed. It...

Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) says that although he is a gun owner himself and strongly believes in the Second Amendment, he also believes people on the no-fly list should be barred from purchasing guns. "I’m a gun owner. I strongly believe in the Second Amendment," Thompson said during an emotional press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday held by House and Senate Democrats to commemorate the third anniversary of the Newtown, Conn. shootings.

Three years ago on Monday, a gunman opened fire in Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 first graders and six adults. Marking the anniversary, Vice President Joe Biden tweeted: Since that nightmare, an estimated 555 children have been killed by guns in America. It is shameful that Congress hasn't acted. As the nation debates gun laws and access to mental healthcare, Newtown parents remind us of the urgency.

Monday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” while discussing a new pro-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) super PAC ad featuring an anti-gun control message that references Presidents Barack Obama’s gun control push after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to disavow the ad.

Tensions are flaring in the House over a sweeping mental health reform bill that is slated to move forward next week. The legislation from Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), billed as the Republican response to the Newtown elementary school shooting in 2012, is finally set to get committee consideration on Wednesday at a markup in the Energy and Commerce Committee. But Democrats on the committee are objecting to several provisions in the bill, and say what was once cast as a bipartisan negotiation has been anything but. While the committee could advance the bill along party lines, a bipartisan vote would...

Over the course of the day we've had a handful of readers write in to ask or demand that we not report the name of the shooter, Chris Harper Mercer, in the Oregon school massacre. As the massacres continue, an increasing number of people think that we should expunge the names of the offenders both to obliterate their memory and deny them whatever infamy or perverted glory they hoped to gain by their crimes. I respect this viewpoint. I simply do not agree with it as something a news organization can or should do. There are various specifics of the...

As of Monday morning, July 20, the U.S. flag continued to fly at the top of the pole above the White House and at the U.S. Capitol building, five days after a gunman launched attacks in which he murdered five U.S. military personnel at facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn. President Barack Obama has yet to order the flags to half-staff following this tragedy. By contrast, in 2012, President Obama did order the flags flown at half-staff on the same day as the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. […] Federal law states: “By order of the President,...

Cerberus Capital Management LP told its investors Friday that it has created an avenue for them to sell their stakes in a gun maker that the private-equity firm has been under pressure to divest since the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. Cerberus sent a letter to its investors, which include pension funds and endowments, telling them that it has separated Remington Outdoor Co., the maker of Remington and Bushmaster rifles formerly known as Freedom Group Inc., from its funds and will allow any investor wishing to cash out of the company to do so, according to a person familiar...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz set off a media firestorm last week by becoming the first to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination in 2016. The media has generally described Cruz as a passionate, hard-line conservative and a polarizing figure. Writing for Fox News, Michael Goodwin argued that Cruz has a chance at becoming our next president, calling him “a brilliant man of clear conservative convictions, not muddled by the politics of calculation.” It’s a nice sentiment, but it also effectively illustrates the underlying problem with candidates like Cruz and with our political system in general: being “muddled” by a...

Homeschooling families in Connecticut are in the process of forming a parental rights coalition, as they reject the use of the Newtown shootings over two years ago as a vehicle to undermine the rights of parents to choose the venue for educating their children.

The 16 members of Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy’s Sandy Hook Advisory Commission have completed their report on the December, 2012 murder of 26 children and adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. And as might be expected from a hand-picked group of “healthcare professionals, public safety professionals and academics” their recommendations—offered in a 250 page anti-gun rights treatise—will have little to no effect preventing the next lunatic killing at will in one of Connecticut’s widely publicized Gun Free Zones. “We support the concept of firearm registration,” writes the editorial board of the CT Post, “though that would not...

More than two years after Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 schoolchildren and six faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., as well as killing his mother and himself, a state commission released a draft report of a wide-ranging set of recommendations on Thursday with the goal of preventing such killings.

Despite what some people think, hero is not a synonym for competent government-hired killer.If Clint Eastwood's record-breaking movie, American Sniper, launches a frank public conversation about war and heroism, the great director will have performed a badly needed service for the country and the world. This is neither a movie review nor a review of the late Chris Kyle's autobiographical book on which the movie is based. My interest is in the popular evaluation of Kyle, America's most prolific sniper, a title he earned through four tours in Iraq. Let's recall some facts, which perhaps Eastwood thought were too obvious...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Gun maker Remington has moved a lawsuit by families of those shot in the Sandy Hook school massacre from state to federal court, where at least one expert says it has less chance of succeeding. Nine families sued Remington and others in Bridgeport Superior Court in December arguing the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle used in the shooting should not have been sold for civilian use because of its overwhelming firepower. A 10th family joined the lawsuit adding a wrongful death claim....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Peg Brokaw, 95, had missed the early Saturday morning Mass at St. Rose of Lima, on Church Hill Road in Newtown, but said she would go inside and say a prayer, anyway. She has lived in this town a long time, and tells you her son is a retired policeman here, one who still directs traffic in front of the church occasionally. And because this was another December in Newtown, two years now since 20 children and six adults were shot dead inside Sandy Hook Elementary, because Peg Brokaw stood outside what became the church of small coffins in...

A law firm representing the families of nine of the 26 people killed and a teacher injured at the Sandy Hook Elementary School says it has filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer, distributor and seller of the rifle used in the shooting. The negligence and wrongful death lawsuit asserts that the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle should not have been made publicly available because it is a military weapon unsuited for civilian use.

Former late night host Jay Leno was scheduled to do an appearance at an annual event hosted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation in Connecticut this January. The Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT) focuses on pretty much what it sounds like… hunters and the gear they use to engage in the sport. Really dangerous sounding, eh? Well, to some it must have been, and the fact that the group is based in Newtown certainly bolstered their courage to complain. A petition posted by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence accuses Leno of “helping to legitimize a crass commercialism which...