legal question

[cgseanp1]

Let's say someone goes into walmart, buys some ammo, and then uses it to shoot someone.. Is there any possible way the victim or his family could go after walmart and actually win? Or lets say a private party sold ammo to another private party, and the same thing happened. Can the seller be held liable? And this is assuming the buyer was of legal age and was legally allowed to own ammunition. Are there laws in place protecting the seller from this type of situation?

Thanks, just something I was thinking about!

[Jesse996r]

They could try, but not sure how it would turn out... This is one of the reasons why Kmart stop selling ammo after Colombine, and Roger Moore doing a documentry.

[paintballergb]

I say it this day and age ANYONE can be sued. If a criminal can fall through the roof of a ladies house, which he was going to break into, then successfully sue her then anyone can be sued and lose.

[J-cat]

Not unless they can prove negligence, i.e was it forseeable the buyer would use the ammo illegally. And they would first have to find you and prove you sold him the ammo.

[cgseanp1]

ya, I figured they could try, I just don't see how they could win. I thought there was a law trying to prevent this type of situation, I could be way off though. There are so many scenarios like this that don't involve guns and ammo, so I figured there must be a law. For example, someone buys a knife and kills someone, now it's whoever's fault that sold the knife. Someone buys a truck, gets drunk and kills someone, now it's the dealers fault, etc etc.

[DigitalAmmunition]

Not unless they can prove negligence, i.e was it forseeable the buyer would use the ammo illegally. And they would first have to find you and prove you sold him the ammo.

I asked my girlfriend (law student, very smart) this question and she almost replied verbatim of the above statement. She said they could only bring about a tort (being the sell was lawful), but that they would have a very hard time proving negligence.

Then (being who she is) followed it up with, "Then again, in the great state of California, you can basically sue whoever you want for whatever you want." LOL