Has anyone been held liable?

[C-dub]

Has anyone been held liable for restricting gun possession after someone was hurt or killed? If so, could the federal or state governments be held liable for passing the laws restricting guns from places like schools or federal land or buildings?

[C-dub]

All right everyone. I really didn't know the answer to this and something in another thread made me think about it again. I figured that only a person or business that may have lost a suit of this kind did so because they couldn't afford a good enough lawyer. However, upon reflection, I suppose if a larger company has successfully and rightly defended themselves against such a lawsuit any smaller fish would be able to use that decision as precedence. Is that how that works?

[casingpoint]

Can't recall the explicit details, but the classic case of this syndrome is that of an East Coast woman whom the judge noted had been statutorily deprived of the means for self defense and subsequently police protection when she needed it. Lady called the cops when assaulted and was told something to the effect, "Not our problem." She was then battered or raped.

[ELB]

To answer the original question: I am not aware of any successful lawsuits by an injured party against a non-governmental agency because it restricted gun possession. Altho I don't have an example at my fingertips, I believe businesses and other non-governmental entities have been sued by people who have been criminally assaulted (or by the relatives of those killed) on the premises for not providing adequate "security," but this has not included prohibiting otherwise legal firearms. Apparently the right to have someone else take care of you and make sure nothing bad happens to you trumps your own right to provide for your own defense. Likewise, "property rights" trump rights to bear arms, but do not trump "rights" to have wheelchair accessible ramps, smoke detectors, cockroach-free kitchens, and a host of other things.

WRT to casingpoint's example: the example does not speak to the OP, because the "rights" and powers of governmental and non-governmental agencies are not really comparable. The government, particularly the police, have no legal obligation to protect an individual from a criminal attack. There have been a number of cases where people have tried to sue the police and/or the local government because they suffered an attack, using various arguments, and some of them have gotten as far as the SCOTUS, but none of them have been successful. The SCOTUS has consistently ruled the government has no obligation to protect any one individual, only a duty to try to protect the public at large and maintain order. Only people with a "special relationship" are required to be protected by the government. Protective orders, restraining orders, and the like do not establish this special relationship (see Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748). Incarceration does -- i.e. the government has a responsibility to protect people it has jailed and imprisoned.

WRT to statutorily denying someone the means (i.e. guns) to defend themselves: Heller et al won a case that says yes he has a constitutionally protected right to have a handgun in his home for self-defense, but prior to that case, if he had been beaten to a pulp in his home, neither the city nor the cops would have been held responsible for that, even if they had gotten a dozen 911 calls prior to or during the attack. See Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981);

[WildBill]

Altho I don't have an example at my fingertips, I believe businesses and other non-governmental entities have been sued by people who have been criminally assaulted (or by the relatives of those killed) on the premises for not providing adequate "security," but this has not included prohibiting otherwise legal firearms.

One famous case that resulted from an attack that occurred in 1974 when singer Connie Francis was raped in the Jericho Turnpike Howard Johnson's Lodge following a performance at the Westbury Music Fair in New York. After returning to the room some time after the attack she discovered the broken lock and torn screen had not been repaired by facility management. She subsequently sued the motel chain for failing to provide adequate security. She reportedly won a $3 million judgment, at the time one of the largest such judgments in history.

This type of settlement is quite rare. If not for her fame and popularity, it most certainly would have been settled for a much smaller amount.

[ELB]

If you go search on "negligent security" you will get a long list of attorneys advertising their services in suing "hotels, malls, office buildings, apartments..."

"Lawsuit security hotel" also brings up stories on current lawsuits. Didn't see anything about suing anybody over posting a 30.06 sign...

[casingpoint]

ELB,

As I can recall, the woman applied for a handgun permit and was denied. Then she was assaulted. It defies logic that a government which denies it's citizens the means to protect themselves from harm does not incur some obligation to protect those citizens, regardless of what the SCOTUS has said. If faced with providing such security or abandoning statutory restrictions on personal arms, I think most legislatures would promptly restore gun rights by removing the restrictions. That is basically where the recent Second Amendment body of law is headed, whether some officianados like it or not.