Member Newsletter: Army Mass Shooting Suit Signals a New Trend

We’ve seen some fascinating (and controversial) new strategies to combat subsequent mass shootings in recent years. I’m reminded of the trend of blaming parents for the actions of school shooters. Now it looks like the next trend is for victims of mass shootings to sue government agencies for their negligence in enabling a murderer.

Victims of the shooting in Lewiston, Maine, have informed the Army that they may soon file a lawsuit. Contributing author Jake Fogleman takes a look at the situation and the pattern the Lewiston victims may be following.

Then I dive into the latest Supreme Court Landmark poll Brno Decision. It is popular and is becoming increasingly popular. You’ll probably be surprised at how widely there is support for this Brno is, but there are some limitations.

Additionally, Bearing Arms’ Cam Edwards joins the podcast to discuss the fallout from the NRA’s animal cruelty story.

Analysis: Mass Shooting Lawsuit Against Army Has a Template for Success [Member Exclusive]
By Jake Fogleman

A member of the armed forces could soon face trial for the second time for failing to prevent a mass shooting by one of their members. There is reason to believe that the lawsuit could be successful.

On Tuesday, attorneys represented a group of 100 survivors and family members of victims of last year’s mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. served the US government legal notice of their intent to sue the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army and Keller Army Community Hospital for negligence. They claim the army did not respond adequately Warning signs and an explicit threat to carry out a mass shooting of a reservist before he finally carried out his attack last October.

The gunman killed 18 people and wounded 13 others in the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history.

“In the year since the mass shooting, there have been multiple investigations and many facts have come to light showing that the Army could have — and should have — acted,” Travis Brennan, one of the attorneys representing the families, said in an interview statement. “[It] It is now abundantly clear that there were many opportunities for intervention that could have prevented the tragic events of October 25.”

In many ways, the proposed lawsuit is the expected result of a nearly year-long investigation into what went wrong to make the Lewiston shooting possible. Separate formal investigations conducted by the U.S. Army Reserve, the U.S. Army Inspector General and an independent commission commissioned by Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) have all members of the Army rifleman’s unit, the Army leadership and blamed local law enforcement to varying degrees. The main criticism of the reports was their failure to disarm the troubled reservist and to investigate his erratic behavior despite having several opportunities to do so. The army even admitted to disciplinary action against three members of his unit’s leadership for “dereliction of duty” related to the handling of the situation.

But suing government agencies and officials for failing to stop or even deter someone from carrying out violent attacks is an uphill battle. In general, the legal system sets the hurdles for successful liability lawsuits against the state to be extremely high, in particular for cases in which third parties caused the damage. Governmental entities enjoy sovereign immunity, which generally protects them from liability lawsuits Decades of case law have found that in almost all circumstances, government officials have no legal duty to protect individual members of the public from harm.

However, this hill has already been climbed and the barrier has already been cleared once.

The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) partially waives the sovereign immunity of the federal government by allowing private parties to hold it accountable for misconduct by its employees or agents during their employment. With certain exceptions, the law allows the government to be held liable in circumstances in which a private citizen committing the same act would be liable under tort law.

The closest thing that might come to the Lewiston lawsuit was an FTCA lawsuit that helped more than 80 family members and survivors of the Sutherland Springs shooting in 2022 obtain a $230 million liability judgment against the Air Force In this case, the Air Force failed to report the Sutherland Springs shooter’s military domestic violence conviction to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). This failure allowed the shooter to acquire the weapon he later used to carry out the attack.

The judge overseeing that lawsuit concluded that the government “failed to exercise reasonable care” in failing to provide the shooter’s criminal record to NICS and that its negligence “was 60% responsible for plaintiffs’ injuries.” “.

But while the Sutherland Springs case serves as a proof of concept for securing convictions against a branch of the military that failed to prevent a mass shooting, it also shows why this is an arduous task. The Department of Justice (DOJ) ultimately appealed the $230 million arbitration award, and the Sutherland Springs families ultimately chose to settle the case for $144 million in 2023, a full five years after theirs first lawsuit.

In some ways, a similar settlement agreement with the Army is probably the more likely outcome for the Lewiston families if their original claims are allowed to go to trial. Other civil liability lawsuits against the federal government over its failure to prevent mass shootings also ended in settlements.

In 2016, the victims of the Mother Emanuel Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, sued the FBI for failing to find the NICS file that had imprisoned the shooter from purchasing the gun he used in the attack. had excluded. After The Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that their FTCA claims could be pursued, the Justice Department said in 2021 agreed to an amount of $88 million settlement with them.

Likewise, victims of the Parkland school shooting sued the FBI for failing to properly follow up on the shooter’s repeated tips in that case to attack the school. According to a district judge, similar decided that their FTCA claims could proceed, the DOJ said completed with the families for $127.5 million in 2022.

Many of these settlements were accompanied by reforms, whether through internal regulations or laws, aimed at preventing a repeat of the failures that led – at least in part – to the massacre.

The Army could try to reach an agreement with the Lewiston families to avoid the public relations damage that would come from fighting the families of mass shooting victims after already admitting internal failures and oversights. Or, if it feels it is on firmer footing this time, it could try to defend the case in court.

Whatever the outcome, the Lewiston families’ actions show that this could be a new trend in an attempt to force government agencies to be more proactive in stopping cruel attacks. There is now a clear plan to remove some responsibility from the federal government if it fails to properly heed the warning signs of an impending mass shooting.

Podcast: The Consequences of the NRA’s Animal Cruelty Story (Ft. Cam Edwards) [Member Early Access]
By Stephen Gutowski

This week we unfortunately have to talk about a story that comes with a content warning.

On Monday, news resurfaced about NRA boss Doug Hamlin’s involvement in the torture and killing of a cat during college. Hamlin has denied “direct” involvement, but contemporary reports suggest his role was more than minor. Bearing Arms’ Cam Edwards joins the show to find out what this all means for the already struggling NRA.

Cam said the story was cruel and would make it difficult for Hamlin to effectively reform the organization, as he claimed to want to do. But he also argued that the NRA may not last longer than Hamlin has been around, especially given the lightning-fast nature of the modern news cycle.

He also said that the history of animal cruelty may have had an impact on the group canceling its Georgia event with Donald Trump, but that it could also be part of a broader trend of Trump canceling events. Still, he said the scandal would likely hurt the NRA’s efforts to recover from its former CEO’s still-unresolved corruption scandal. And it’s becoming increasingly clear how much this puts them at a disadvantage compared to gun control groups when it comes to political spending.

We also discuss Elon Musk’s recent pro-gun trend and whether he could be a counterpoint to Michael Bloomberg’s funding of gun control groups.

You can get a 30-day free trial of The Dispatch here.

You can listen to the show on your favorite podcasting app or by clicking here. The video of the episode is available on our YouTube channel. An automatically generated transcript can be found here. As always, Reload members get access on Sundays. Everyone else can listen on Monday.

Plus, author Jake Fogleman and I report on a new poll that shows the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision is more popular than ever. We also discuss the Court’s recent move to uphold, reverse and remand a lower court decision that sided with pro-gun plaintiffs. We’ll briefly review some of the recent ad spending by gun groups before concluding with a discussion of what a Trump or Harris presidency might mean for gun policy in practice.

Audio here. Video here.