The sellers failed to predict the use of the guns.
Relatives of three people shot to death in 2014 outside Jewish facilities in Overland Park have filed lawsuits over the sale of guns used in the shootings.
The family of William Corporon and his grandson, Reat Underwood, who were fatally shot outside the Jewish Community Center, filed suit Tuesday in Johnson County District Court.
In two identical suits on behalf of each victim, they allege that employees of a Wal-Mart store in Republic, Mo., were negligent when they sold a shotgun later used to kill Corporon and Reat.
“Gun dealers, including Wal-Mart, owe a duty to use the highest standard of care to prevent the supply of firearms to those prohibited from possessing them,” they said in their suits.
On Monday, the family of Terri LaManno, who was killed outside Village Shalom care center, filed a similar suit in Jackson County Circuit Court against Wal-Mart, a gun store in Lebanon, Mo., and the operators of a gun show where guns were purchased.
F. Glenn Miller Jr., a 75-year-old southern Missouri neo-Nazi, carried out the attacks on April 13, 2014, in an effort to kill as many Jews as possible. None of the victims was Jewish.
A Johnson County jury convicted Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., last year. He was sentenced to death.
Miller, who was a previously convicted felon, could not legally buy or possess firearms.
According to the lawsuits, he enlisted another southern Missouri man, John Mark Reidle, to purchase the weapons.
Federal prosecutors charged Reidle for falsely claiming on a federal form that he was purchasing guns for himself. He pleaded guilty last fall and was placed on probation.[…]
“The Corporon family’s claims do not challenge law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights to purchase guns or law-abiding retailers rights to sell guns,” said attorney David Morantz who is representing the family. “These lawsuits seek to hold retailers accountable for adhering to long-established laws designed to prevent guns from ending up in the hands of dangerous criminals and designed to prevent tragedies like the shootings of April 13, 2014.”
HT: Guns