text: Families of victims in the Sandy Hook school shooting are taking their fight against a major gunmaker to the Connecticut Supreme Court on Tuesday. They're seeking to reinstate a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the military-style weapon used in the attack. 
   
   Last year, a lawsuit filed by some victims' families was dismissed because federal law protects gunmakers from liability in shooting deaths, reports CBS News correspondent Don Dahler. 
   
   Now, lawyers claim gun manufacturer Remington knowingly marketed its version of the AR-15 assault rifle to a high-risk group of young men, including shooter Adam Lanza. 
   
   In a brief submitted to the Connecticut Supreme Court, attorneys representing 10 Sandy Hook families contend that in order to boost sales, gun manufacturer Remington targeted a "younger demographic" by "linking the AR-15 to macho vigilantism and military-style insurrection." 
   
   Nearly five years after her six-year-old son Dylan was killed by Lanza -- armed with an AR-15-style rifle made by Remington subsidiary Bushmaster -- Nicole Hockley wants the gun manufacturer held accountable. 
   
   CBS News 
   
   "This is a weapon that's been designed to inflict mass casualties and, 'you're not a man if you don't have it.' That's morally reprehensible and, from a marketing perspective, that's just wrong and needs to stop," Hockley said. 
   
   In print ads, the firearm is portrayed alongside phrases like: "perform under pressure," "bow down" and "consider your man card reissued." 
   
   "Remington increases the risk when they market the weapon this way, pulling in dangerous users," said Josh Koskoff, the attorney representing the 10 families in the suit against Remington. 
   
   "Not all of them are going to use them like Adam Lanza, but collectively, they're going to be at increased risk," Koskoff said. 
   
   According to the Gun Violence Archive project, more than 1,500 mass shootings have taken place since Sandy Hook. 
   
   Legal analysts say the effort to appeal the dismissed lawsuit rests on proving that the manufacturer's negligence allowed the weapon to fall into the wrong hands. 
   
   "What the appellate judges are supposed to do is judge this case according to the law. So although these horrific, horrific shootings that have happened are out there, theoretically the judges should disregard them," said CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman. 
   
   CBS News reached out to Remington, but the gun manufacturer did not respond. If Tuesday's appeal is successful, the case will advance to the discovery phase, during which Remington's marketing campaigns could be scrutinized. ||||| HARTFORD, Conn. (Reuters) - A lawyer for families who lost loved ones in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting told Connecticut’s highest court on Tuesday that Remington Outdoor Co [FREDM.UL] should be held responsible because its military-themed marketing was designed to appeal to young men like killer Adam Lanza. 
   
   “They knew they were hitting their mark and Lanza was responding to their marketing,” said lawyer Joshua Koskoff 
   
   Lanza, 20, used a Remington AR-15 Bushmaster rifle, a semi-automatic civilian version of the U.S. military’s M-16, to kill 20 school children between the ages of 6 and 7, as well as six adult staff members, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012. He then killed himself. 
   
   Following the conclusion Tuesday’s arguments, the Connecticut Supreme Court will now decide whether the families of nine of the victims and one survivor can proceed with a trial seeking to hold Remington, along with a gun wholesaler and local retailer, responsible for the carnage based on its marketing. 
   
   A representative for the court declined to say when it would rule. 
   
   The families are advancing a somewhat novel legal argument in hopes of overcoming a federal law enacted by U.S. Congress in 2005 to shield gun manufacturers from liability for how their products are used. 
   
   Remington’s lawyer, James Vogts, told the Connecticut court that the families’ claims, first filed in 2014, are barred by the 2005 law. 
   
   FILE PHOTO: Street artist Mark Panzarino, 41, prepares a memorial as he writes the names of the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims during the six-month anniversary of the massacre, at Union Square in New York, June 14, 2013. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo 
   
   “What happened in the school that morning was horrific,” Vogts said. “But no matter how much we wished those children and teachers were still alive, the law needs to be applied.” 
   
   A lower court judge agreed with the gun maker and dismissed the families’ lawsuit in 2016. But the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed to hear the case a week after the families filed their first appeal. 
   
   The packed courtroom in Hartford, Connecticut, included many of the victims’ family members. Ian Hockley, who lost his 6-year-old son, Dylan, in the shooting, told reporters after the proceeding that families were “running out of patience” over the gun maker’s ability to escape liability. 
   
   “But we have not lost one ounce of confidence in the validity of our case,” he said. 
   
   The families claim Remington and the other defendants “extolled the militaristic and assaultive qualities” of the AR-15, advertising the rifle as “mission-adaptable” and “the ultimate combat weapons system” in a deliberate pitch to a demographic of young men fascinated by the military. 
   
   The families said Lanza was part of that demographic and cited media reports saying he previously expressed a desire to join the army. The rifle was bought by Lanza’s mother, whom he also killed, as a gift for him or for the two of them to share, the lawsuit claims. 
   
   The families’ argument is based on the legal doctrine of negligent entrustment, in which a product is carelessly sold or given to a person at high risk of using it in a harmful way. Negligent entrustment is specifically excepted from the 2005 gun maker shield laws. 
   
   FILE PHOTO: Mourners hold signs during a solidarity vigil in memory of victims of Las Vegas' Route 91 Harvest music festival mass killing, in Newtown, Connecticut U.S., the site of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin/File Photo 
   
   The argument has historically been used where someone lends a car to a high-risk driver who goes on to cause an accident. It has met with some success in lawsuits against gun shop owners, but legal experts said it has never been used before to target a manufacturer. 
   
   David Studdert, a Stanford law professor, said on Monday he thought negligent entrustment was a tough argument for the families to make because it has traditionally involved someone having direct knowledge that another person poses a risk. 
   
   If the Sandy Hook families are successful, Timothy Lytton, a law professor at Georgia State University, said on Monday he would expect the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case. ||||| Connecticut Supreme Court justices spent more than 90 minutes Tuesday peppering attorneys for some victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and the manufacturer of the gun used by the shooter with questions about the merits of a lawsuit filed by the families seeking to hold Remington Outdoor Co. liable for Adam Lanza’s shooting spree. 
   
   In front of a packed courtroom that included about a half dozen victims’ families, lawyers representing special interest groups including the National Rifle Association and a group of physicians who have treated the victims of mass shootings, and national media, the five justices focused their questions on “negligent entrustment,” 100-year-old Connecticut laws and how a case about a slingshot injury in Michigan equates to one of the worst mass shootings in the country’s history. 
   
   It was difficult to ascertain any pattern in the justices’ questions. At one point, Justice Richard Palmer asked Remington attorney James Vogts what legitimate uses there were for an AR-15, noting that plaintiffs called the weapon used in the Newtown school shooting a “killing machine.” Vogts said it is used for target practice, deer hunting and home security. 
   
   Justice Raheem L. Mullins asked plaintiffs’ attorney Josh Koskoff what could be a key legal question: “Was it negligent entrustment to sell the weapon to [Adam Lanza’s mother, Nancy Lanza]?” Nancy Lanza bought the Bushmaster AR-15 used in the shooting. 
   
   A Superior Court judge in Bridgeport dismissed the lawsuit in 2016 agreeing with attorneys for Remington that the lawsuit "falls squarely within the broad immunity" provided to gun manufacturers and dealers by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA. The lawsuit also named Camfour Holding LLP, the gun's distributor, and Riverview Gun Sales Inc., the East Windsor gun shop where Nancy Lanza purchased the AR-15 right around her son’s 18th birthday. 
   
   Legal experts said the case will come down to how the state Supreme Court will interpret two possible exceptions allowed under PLCAA — whether Remington can be held liable for so-called “negligent entrustment” or whether it violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act. Negligent entrustment is defined as “supplying of a qualified product by a seller for use by another person when the seller knows, or reasonably should know, the person to whom the product is supplied is likely to, and does, use the product in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical injury to the person or others.” 
   
   Koskoff started his argument taking the courtroom back to the morning of Dec. 14, 2012 to a “young man on a mission” who knew exactly what weapon to choose to carry out the killings — a Bushmaster assault weapon. 
   
   “Remington may have never known Adam Lanza but they had been courting him for years,” Koskoff said. “It wasn’t just that [Remington] marketed the weapon looking for people with characteristics of Adam Lanza but that Adam Lanza heard the message. He idolized the military and wanted to be an Army Ranger and Remington marketed the AR-15 as the weapon used by the Army Rangers.” 
   
   Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 first graders, after shooting his way through the front window of the school before killing himself. Lanza had killed his mother before going to the school. Families of nine victims who were killed and a teacher who survived the Dec. 14, 2012 massacre filed the lawsuit in January 2015 seeking to hold Remington liable, arguing it marketed the AR-15 to the public even though it knew the weapon was designed for military use. 
   
   Koskoff appealed the lower court’s dismissal and is seeking to have the high court return the case to the Bridgeport Superior Court so “the discovery phase of this case can begin and we can start uncovering documents on how this military weapon ended up in civilian hands.” The case has drawn national attention and came on the same day as a shooting at a school California and on the heels of another mass shooting inside a church two weeks ago in Texas. That was the fourth mass shooting involving assault weapons that has occurred since the Sandy Hook lawsuit was filed. 
   
   There were five justices seated for the hearing. Two justices, newly appointed Maria Araujo Kahn and Richard A. Robinson, weren’t present for the hearing but will be involved in the court’s decision. Supreme Court hearings normally last an hour but justices had so many questions for Koskoff that Palmer extended the hearing to allow equal time for Vogts and a rebuttal by Koskoff. 
   
   Vogts and attorney Christopher Renzulli, who represents Camfour, stuck to the argument that they have used since the lawsuit was filed — PLCAA protects them from this type of lawsuit. Vogts argued the law is clear — the manufacturer of the gun used at Sandy Hook is not liable for the damage “the criminal” caused. 
   
   “There is no need for a legal re-examination of the law,” Vogts said. “Under the law, the manufacturer of the gun used by the criminal that day isn’t responsible legally for his actions.” 
   
   Palmer challenged Vogts, asking him if he would acknowledge that the law must adapt to current times. 
   
   “We’re not just hearing from plaintiffs the law needs to adapt,” Vogts said. “We’re hearing that the law of negligent entrustment needs to be ignored.” 
   
   Vogts said courts in Connecticut and around the country have ruled that manufacturers are not held liable in cases such as Sandy Hook, but that the liability could rest with the gun seller, who can assess how appropriate it was to sell the weapon to the buyer. 
   
   Justice Andrew McDonald then asked why Remington’s advertising boasts about how “forces of opposition bow down” to owners of the AR-15. “What purpose is that kind of advertising?” McDonald said. 
   
   “The plaintiffs haven’t explained how advertisements fit into the issue of negligent entrustment,” Vogts said. He argued, “there is no case law on advertising being declared a cause of death.” Vogts said to the extent that advertising has been at the center of legal cases, they have concerned misleading or deceptive advertising, such as the kind involved in tobacco cases. 
   
   The justices pushed Koskoff on how he expects to hold Remington liable for what occurred after a legal gun sale was made to Nancy Lanza in 2010.
target: – The families of nine Sandy Hook victims and one teacher who survived the deadly mass shooting presented their case to Connecticut Supreme Court justices Tuesday in their lawsuit against Remington, maker of the AR-15 weapon used by Adam Lanza to kill 20 children and six adults in 2012, the Hartford Courant reports. The victims' argument centers around the marketing campaign behind the AR-15, which the mother of one 6-year-old victim tells CBS News was "morally reprehensible." The lawsuit claims Remington linked "the AR-15 to macho vigilantism and military-style insurrection" in order to target a "younger demographic" and increase sales. One AR-15 ad included the tagline "consider your man card reissued." Another ad touted it as "the ultimate combat weapons system," according to Reuters. Josh Koskoff, lawyer for the victims' families, compared it to "the Ford Motor Company advertising a car that can run over people" and said that kind of advertising attracts "dangerous users," including Lanza. "Adam Lanza heard their message," Koskoff told the justices Tuesday. "He idolized the military and Remington advertised the AR-15 as the weapon used by Army Rangers." He says Remington "knew exactly what they were doing" with its marketing strategies. James Vogts, lawyer for Remington, says the company is protected by the 2005 Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that shields gun makers from liability in shootings. "No matter how much we wished those children and teachers were still alive, the law needs to be applied," Vogts told justices. Following Tuesday's arguments, justices will decide whether the families' lawsuit can go to trial.