LAS VEGAS – A U.S. judge is asking Nevada’s highest court to decide whether state law allows gun manufacturers and sellers to be held liable for deaths as he considers a lawsuit from the parents of a victim of the deadliest mass shooting in the nation's modern history.
Federal law generally protects gun manufacturers and dealers when crimes are committed with their products. A negligence and wrongful death lawsuit filed last year in Las Vegas accuses eight firearms makers and several shops in Nevada and Utah of letting weapons be easily modified to fire like automatic weapons.
A shooter in 2017 outfitted weapons with “bump stock" attachments that let him fire in rapid succession from a Las Vegas high-rise hotel into an open-air concert