The negligence and wrongful death lawsuit filed in Bridgeport Superior Court December 13 by a survivor and the families of nine of the 26 people killed two years ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School hopes to move the discussion of guns and gun violence away from the politically charged precincts of legislative hearings, social media and other freewheeling forums (yes, editorials too) into the more ordered setting of a court room. It is not that courtrooms are immune from the distortions of polemics and grandiloquence, which have distracted this country’s debate on guns. Legal proceedings, in fact, are known for these high rhetorical arts. In courtrooms, however, no matter how high the words are piled, it is evidence that is supposed to tip the scales.

This kind of civil liability action, however, was specifically outlawed in 2005 by Congress with the strong backing of the gun industry. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) accorded broad immunity to gun manufacturers and dealers in both state and federal courts against claims brought in response to “criminal or lawful misuse” of firearms. The law presumes that the makers of legal weapons that are designed to be lethal should not be held accountable when they fulfill that function in the context of a crime. The law concludes the liability should rest with the shooter and not the gun or its maker.

The immunity of the PLCAA is not complete, however. The Newtown plaintiffs hope to find a way through exceptions specified in the act by arguing that the weapon used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School to kill 20 children and six educators — a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, model XM15-E2S — was designed as a military weapon; its safe use was predicated on the discipline and training found in the military and law enforcement agencies. To manufacture and sell the AR-15 to civilian customers “unfit to operate these weapons,” according to the plaintiffs, was to knowingly and negligently contribute to the pain, suffering, and deaths of 12/14.

Fortunately, whether or not this legal action proceeds will be determined by the court and not the Twittersphere, Facebook commenters, or the rest of the chattering class. At this point, the gun debate could benefit from sworn testimony by both gun control advocates and the gun industry on the limits and liabilities of citizen access to high-powered assault weaponry under the Second Amendment protections of the Constitution. When the National Firearms Act of 1934, amended in 1968 by the Crime Control Act, prohibits nonmilitary people from possessing military combat weapons like hand grenades and large barrel bore weapons, should weapons as lethal as those marketed to civilians by Bushmaster as “the ultimate combat weapons system” be treated as just another sporting rifle? It is a question the courts are uniquely positioned to address.