A tragic shooting at the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, left three people dead and seventeen others wounded. The unhinged criminal then committed suicide after a shootout with law enforcement.
In the aftermath and with the perpetrator dead, survivors looked for other culprits.
Over a dozen individuals subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Vermont manufacturer of the WASR-10 rifle that the 19-year-old shooter, Santino William Legan, used in the spree. That action was dismissed by a federal judge last week, ending the legal threat to Century Arms.
Federal judge who dismissed the lawsuit previously kept it alive
In 2024, U.S. District Judge William Sessions rejected a call to dismiss Towner v. Century Arms. The plaintiffs argued that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) did not shield Century Arms from culpability.
The law in question was established over two decades ago to protect Second Amendment-related industries from an onslaught of frivolous and damaging lawsuits. Survivors wanted to pin a portion of the blame on the weapon and its legal status.
They noted the WASR-10 is legal in Nevada, which is where Legan lived and purchased the weapon. However, it is illegal in California.
Recent Supreme Court ruling left no choice but to toss the case
That determination came before the U.S. Supreme Court emphatically shot down Mexico’s attempt to extort $10 billion from the American firearms industry. The high court earlier this year established clear guidelines for a weapons manufacturer not to be covered by the PLCAA.
SCOTUS declared that defendants must have “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of their products. Further, the violation cited must have been “a proximate cause for the harm for which relief is sought.”
As these stipulations clearly were not met in the case against Century Arms, Sessions had little choice but to toss the case he kept alive less than a year ago.
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