By Timothy D. Lytton Distinguished University Professor & Professor of Law, Georgia State University. First published on The Conversation.

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on March 14 that families of the Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting victims could proceed with a lawsuit against the companies that manufactured and sold the semiautomatic rifle used in the attack.

The ruling, which reversed a lower court’s decision, has the potential to unleash a flood of claims by gun violence victims against gun manufacturers – if it’s upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, that is.

My research on the history of lawsuits against the gun industry has documented the failure of gun violence victims to hold gun manufacturers liable for legal marketing practices that many people consider irresponsible. The latest Sandy Hook decision could pave the way for gunmakers to finally be held responsible for them.

Interpreting ‘applicable’

A 2006 law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act grants gun manufacturers immunity from lawsuits that arise out of the criminal misuse of a weapon.

The Sandy Hook families argued that their lawsuit fell under an exception to this federal immunity. The exception allows gun violence victims to sue a manufacturer who “knowingly violated a state or federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of a firearm.

The families claimed that Remington Arms “marketed, advertised and promoted the Bushmaster XM15-E2S for civilians to use to carry out offensive, military style combat missions against their perceived enemies.” They said that this marketing constituted an unfair trade practice under Connecticut law, which they argued is a state statute “applicable” to the marketing of a firearm.

The Connecticut high court agreed and, importantly, interpreted the term “applicable” broadly. That is, the court said that a relevant statute only had to be “capable of being applied” to gun sales, not that the law needed be specifically about firearms, as other courts had held.

What’s next

It is this interpretation that could potentially unleash a flood of lawsuits across the country.

Since many states have unfair trade practices laws like Connecticut’s, it seems likely that gun violence victims will bring similar claims elsewhere. Victims are thus likely to allege that a gun manufacturer’s aggressive marketing of combat-style weapons violates a state statute – like an unfair trade practice law – that is applicable to the sale or marketing of a firearm.

The AR-15 assault rifle was engineered to create what one of its designers called “maximum wound effect.” Its tiny bullets – needle-nosed and weighing less than four grams – travel nearly three times the speed of sound. As the bullet strikes the body, the payload of kinetic energy rips open a cavity inside the flesh – essentially inert space – which collapses back on itself, destroying inelastic tissue, including nerves, blood vessels and vital organs. “It’s a perfect killing machine,” says Dr. Peter Rhee, a leading trauma surgeon and retired captain with 24 years of active-duty service in the Navy. via Rolling Stone

The fate of the Sandy Hook lawsuit and any others that follow will depend on the outcome of an all-but-certain appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the court rejects the Connecticut Supreme Court’s broad interpretation of the word “applicable” in the federal statue, that will restore the immunity from suit that gun makers have enjoyed for more than a decade.

However, if the top U.S. court adopts Connecticut’s broad interpretation, then the gun industry can expect to be the target of a great deal more litigation in the years to come.

Related: Which is higher: The number of people, or the number of guns, in America? PolitiFact 2018

It seems that Republican male legislators in New Hampshire are really taking the gloves off -- wearing pearls to mock moms involved in trying to act against gun violence. The trope of pearl-clutching, easily-offended liberals has a tradition in American politics.

"Male New Hampshire lawmakers on the hearing committee wearing pearls to mock Moms Demand Action volunteers and gun safety advocates," wrote Shannon Watts, founder of the gun control group Moms Demand Action, to describe the picture above.

Her post condemning the men quickly spread, accruing more than 6,000 shares and almost 5,000 comments, writes the BBC.

Debra Altschiller, a Democratic representative who sponsored the bill, tweeted: "Disappointed in the pearl clutching by @NHGOP [New Hampshire Republicans]. There are families who have lost loved ones here and this mocking prop shows how little they empathise with suicide."

"Mocking mothers isn't brave," read one comment, which received more than 6,000 "likes". "Lowly weak men mocking women don't scare us."

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense founder Shannon Watts joins other gun-safety advocates for a news conference to introduce legislation to expand background checks for firearm sales in the Rayburn Room of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 8, 2019, in Washington. via CBS News

Republicans have responded that they were standing in solidarity with a pro-gun women’s group "The use of pearls date back to 2016 and the legislators and Second Amendment supporters were in no way wearing them in a mocking fashion to those who came to testify yesterday.

"They are a symbol of solidarity with the Women's Defense League and the Second Amendment community in the Granite State." CBS News reports that Kimberly Morin, the leader of the Women's Defense League, told media that its members first wore pearls 2016, when it showed support for a bill allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

Morin said the pearls are worn "in defense of women's rights”, adding "We are moms just like they are only on different sides."

The New Hampshire hearing focused on a so-called "red flag" bill that empowers family members or law enforcement officers to go to gain court approval to temporarily take guns away from people who may pose an immediate threat to other people and themselves. Fourteen states have already passed such laws, according to The Associated Press.

Margaret Tilton of Exeter, whose son George died by suicide in 2017 at the age of 23, testified in front of the pearl-wearing men, according to the AP. Tilton told the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee that police were able to convince him to hand over a gun in 2016, but he was able to buy another one.

In this case a picture is worth a thousand words, and the perception of men wearing pearls as mocking women has far greater probable impact, given the constant mocking of progressive female values by Republicans.

Hey, when you're drowning in your own testosterone and Biblical interpretation that women must submit to you, I guess this is how Repubs treat women trying to save lives in the most violent developed nation on Earth. Funny how God didn't rain guns in all those other countries, just the USA. We're so special.

In 2012, as the Republican War on Women was roaring into high gear, Slate wrote: ‘A Plague of Pearl Clutching’. AOC notes that the far left has also used the expression of pearl-clutchers to describe Hillary Clinton supporters as making a big deal of events like this one but not being willing to take to the streets to truly fight Republicans.