Here we go: Family of woman killed in Vegas files Suit against gun makers

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The family of a former Bainbridge Island woman killed by a gunman raining down gunfire from a Las Vegas high-rise hotel suite filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday against eight gun makers and three dealers arguing their weapons are designed in a way that could be easily modified to fire like automatic weapons.

The lawsuit, which targets Colt and seven other gun manufacturers, along with gun shops in Nevada and Utah, is the latest case to challenge a federal law shielding gun manufacturers from liability. It charges that gun makers marketed the ability of the AR-15-style weapons to be easily modified to mimic machine guns and fire continuously, violating both a state and federal ban on automatic weapons.

The family of 31-year-old Carrie Parsons, of Seattle, argues in the lawsuit that the firearms are "thinly disguised" machine guns that the manufacturers knew could be easily modified, even without the use of a "bump stock," an attachment used by the Las Vegas gunman that allowed him to fire in rapid succession, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800 others in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The Trump administration banned bump stocks this year, making it illegal to possess them under the same federal laws that prohibit machine guns.