I'm sure Slidefire has/had insurance. They certainly had a lawyer advising them, and they are in the firearm industry. It would have been insane for them not to be insured. So I think it's more than safe to assume they are insured. That means the insurance company will probably settle any lawsuit against them. That's what insurance is for. And I have no sympathy for the insurance company, insurance is a gamble, the insurer is betting they won't have to pay. They lost that bet THIS TIME, it's the nature of their business.
Lol, insurance only covers up to whatever the insured value is, which given the 100 year flood nature of this event, likely wasn't anywhere near enough to cover all the claims. And there are all kinds of outs in those policies, too.... not to mention, the only reason they probably even lost is because of emo save the orphans BS in the court of public opinion... and likely didn't have much for representation.
Let me put it this way, if I got shot by some thug with a hi-point and my family sued hi-point, the attorney would get laughed out of the courtroom. The gun (or Hi-Point) didn't kill me, the thug did. The only reason this got any traction is because of emo bullshit, and the constant din of "save the orphans" likely overwhelmed the jurors with guilt and bad feelings about something they had no responsibility for whatsoever. There's an entire legion of f***sticks in this country that make innocent people feel guilty over something they didn't do, preying on their emotions, etc. Ambulance chasers are great at this, especially if you can show a pile of bodies. Jurors probably rationalized "well, thiis company is going out of business anyways, least we can do is steal some of their money and give it to the victims, bweah heah, so wah lah, SAAAAAAAVE THE ORPHANS!!!!!!" /groan.
I guess I'm just not a fan of tort abuse. Why are people entitled to money from people who had absolutely nothing to do with someone else's death? This lawyerism of trying to
equate a bump stock with something like, a chemical factory leaking a cloud of gas bhopal-style over a city and killing a bunch of people is just straight up retarded. Ascribing malice to
an inanimate object that requires several DISTINCT actions by a human actor to hurt another human with it, is just straight up retarded.
But if Slidefire wins their suit THEY get nothing, same as if they lose, because both outcomes will bankrupt the estate. And of course slidefire will be out of business anyway so if there is anything left it is nothing but a big payday for the owner.
A big payday after the lawyers get 50%, and the guy (or whoever owns slidefire) likely has lots of creditors to pay....
This is about a big payday for one person, no matter who it may hurt.
Lol, you act like Slidefire has no debt, and that Slidefire is microsoft or something...
The bottom line is if slidefire got sued before by the victims, lost, and had to pay out some kind of a judgement then they have just as much right to sue the guy who caused the whole
thing as the victims do.
And the owner knew he was playing in the margins, that's why he sought a ruling from the ATF, if he was sure what he was making wasn't an MG then he wouldn't have needed the ATF ruling.
*my response deleted* read what
@CrackPot said again, he covered this better than I could. ATF rulings are not special, gnomish mysticism.
Now what follows requires you to understand the difference between what I personally believe is "right" and what the law says is right.
The law says no MGs and left it to the ATF to make rulings. The ATF F'd up when the said a bump stock wan't an MG part, within the law. This F'up was a benefit to those who wanted to spray bullets (if you find that fun, good for you. I prefer a real MG),
I don't give a shit about bump stocks, but the precedent of ruling them out of existence when they clearly complied with constraints in US code is no different than what Healey did in 2016.
They didn't "F up" anything. It's not the ATFs job to make law- they actually did the RIGHT thing by more or less punting when there clearly was no coverage for banning bump stocks within
the confines of the law.
ETA: Before vegas, the closest the ATF ever got to banning bump stocks was the akins accelerator ban, but if you look at the design of that device, it's clearly "mechanical" in nature vs a
typical bump stock.
so everyone here supported it, but it was still a mess up by the ATF,
and it created a situation that was going to go to shit sooner or later, even without what happened in Las Vegas.
Lol, how? Without that catalyst nobody would care. Up until that point only yee-haws bought them to do mag dumps at the
range or their farm pond or whatever. Also, thinking critically, do you even know how uncomplicated the device is? All it really did was
make it so novices could bump fire a gun. Anyone who wasnt a noob could drop a decent semi trigger in an AR and "bump it manually" etc.
I wonder what the ambulance chasers would have done if the BG had just made his own slidefire out of a block/couple pieces of wood.
Or, would they have sued coat hanger manufacturers?
We're also wondering if the ATF was going to decree it illegal to wear pants with belt loops on it while firing a semiautomatic rifle. You can use that as a bump firing
device, too. So it looks like if it stands we might have to go to the range wearing only russian tracksuits or sweatpants.
But the ATF should have left it to congress to change the law and fix their mess up.....under the law. And now everyone is butt hurt that the politicians closed a loophole, what did you expect? I saw it coming a long way off.
They did leave congress to do it- for years. Bump stocks were around for a long time before the shit hit the fan, and various whining c***s had made noises about
them. Then Trump, after being prodded by the NRA, asked the ATF to administratively ban bump stocks, and they did, in likely obvious defiance of existing federal law that defines
machine guns.