For years, uncompromising gun enthusiasts have demanded that politicians, the press and the American people never slander their beloved military-style semiautomatic rifles with the name “assault weapons.”

Even though the guns are marketed with military imagery. Even though there’s a thriving business in aftermarket accessories, like thermal scopes and high-capacity magazines made to “military specification.” Even after these lethal weapons have been used to kill scores of people in massacre after massacre after massacre.

Calling these rifles “assault weapons” is unfair, gun makers and their apologists insist, because it implies they are frightening weapons of war when they are sold for civilian use. This distinction, the fairness of it, matters not at all to the women, men and children wounded or killed by these guns.

The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday permitted a civil suit to move forward against the companies that manufactured and sold the weapon used by the gunman to fire 154 rounds during a five-minute rampage through Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. It was an unexpected loss for the firearms industry, which has long enjoyed federal protection — granted by Congress — from legal redress for the victims of its products.