In July 2019, the parents of a woman who was among the 60 people killed in the shooting at a crowded music festival filed a wrongful death suit against Colt Manufacturing Co. and several other gun manufacturers.
According to the lawsuit, the gun manufacturers "knowingly manufactured and sold weapons designed to shoot automatically because they were aware their AR-15s could easily be modified with bump stocks to do so, thereby violating federal and state machinegun prohibitions."
Stephen Paddock used an AR-15 with a bump stock to fire 1,049 rounds in 10 minutes from his suite in a casino-resort tower on a crowd of 22,000 people before killing himself. Fifty-eight people were killed on the scene or died in hospitals, and hundreds more were injured, including two people who died from complications from their injuries years later.
The Nevada Supreme Court largely agreed with the manufacturers' argument that Nevada law shields them from civil liability, with the exception of "products liability actions involving design or production defects that cause the firearm to malfunction."
"We hold that (state law) provides immunity to the gun companies from the wrongful death and negligence per se claims asserted against them under Nevada law in this case," wrote Justice Kristina Pickering in the unanimous decision.
Carrie Parsons' parents, James and Ann Marie Parsons of Seattle, filed the lawsuit, alleging the manufacturers demonstrated a "reckless disregard for public safety" by advertising the firearms "as military weapons and signaling the weapon's ability to be simply modified." There are dozens of videos online that show people how to install bump stocks, according to the report.
"It was only a matter of when — not if — a gunman would take advantage of the ease of modifying AR-15s to fire automatically in order to significantly increase the body count," according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, according to Pickering, is based on a claim of fault "beyond a firearm's inherent ability to cause harm, that is, the gun companies' manufacture and distribution of illegal machineguns."
However, she stated in the 20-page ruling that state law does not limit the manufacturer's immunity to "legal" firearms. According to her, no civil action is permitted in such cases against the manufacturer of "any" firearm or ammunition.
"We in no way underestimate the profound public policy issues raised or the horrific tragedy inflicted by the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting," she wrote, noting that the law as written did not allow the Parsons to sue the manufacturers.
"If civil liability is to be imposed against firearm manufacturers and distributors in the position of the gun companies in this case," she wrote, "that decision is for the Legislature, not this court." "We implore the Legislature to act if it did not intend to provide immunity in situations such as this."