Should video-game designers be sued?

I respond to the Associated Press article “Suit seeks to hold gunmaker liable” in the Nov. 15 Dispatch. Attorney Joshua Koskoff said Adam Lanza was obsessed with violent video games and that he idolized the Army Rangers.

Koskoff also said Lanza heard the message loud and clear when gunmaker Remington Arms marketed the AR-15 rifle as an overpowering weapon favored by elite military forces.

Koskoff wants the courts to reinstate the wrongful-death lawsuit against Remington, but doesn’t mention any lawsuit toward the manufacturer of the video games. Why not a lawsuit against auto manufacturers for transportation to the school?

Koskoff said Remington marketed the gun to a younger demographic, using soldiers in combat, and slogans invoking battle and high-pressure missions. The marketing of war video games that I have seen does the same thing. The video games show how to use weapons, and what destruction they can cause.

Lanza didn’t go out and buy the rifle, it was already in the home, and it was his mother’s. Did Timothy McVeigh hear a message from the fertilizer manufacturer to make a bomb out of fertilizer? A product that has no restrictions on purchasing when combined with a van caused more deaths and destruction than the AR-15. Why not a wrongful-death suit against the fertilizer and auto manufacturers?

Terrorists use whatever is at hand. If a terrorist is set on mass destruction he/she will fmd a way: rifles, vehicles, pressure cookers, or any other means to fulfill their objective.

Taking the AR- 15 off the market will only lead to another source. As a citizen, I believe the liability lies with the owners of any weapon. As my children were raised, they were taught what a gun was for and to respect it, and the value of a person’s life.