Could Get Interesting

The Hill:

Survivors of a mass shooting at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart have filed a lawsuit against the mega-retailer, claiming the Aug. 3 attack that left 22 people dead could have been prevented.

Jessica and Guillermo Garcia were both shot multiple times while they were shopping with their children, The El Paso Times reported Wednesday.

- and -

In their suit filed against Walmart Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Texas LLC on Aug. 30, the family is not asking for monetary compensation, The El Paso Times reported. Instead, they are demanding to know why Walmart did not have armed security or measures to prevent the shooting.

"I don’t know the answers to this, but I definitely think that if they had armed security there, this would have turned out different,” said Don Coca, father of Jessica Garcia, told the newspaper. “They (Walmart) could have prevented it. There are a lot of things that could have been done differently.”

It also reportedly accuses Walmart officials of gross negligence for failing to have safety measures in place.

“It was the responsibility of Wal-Mart to provide security to the premises due to the capacity of patrons at the premises. Despite the crowd at the premises on the day of the shooting, Wal-Mart failed to provide security guards to protect the patrons at the premises," the lawsuit obtained by the outlet states.

It's a good approach, I think. It starts a process aimed at holding more people more accountable. It broadens the scope by including more of us in analysis of the problem and its solutions.

If WalMart loses this, then we have another way to attack the problems of gun violence - by enlisting the support of the big corporations. 

There are no companies out there looking to lose clients because consumers fear for their safety in public places. Once the cost/benefit calculus tips in favor of regular normal people, things could change at a fairly brisk pace.

It'll also be interesting to see more of the fight that the NRA stupidly picked with WalMart over the retailer's decision to stop selling handguns and certain types of ammo.