Keeping the Attacks on Gun Makers Out of Courtrooms

The Protection of Lawful Commerce of Arms Act was passed because the anti-gunners were being a nuisance by suing every manufacturer of firearms over whatever some third-party did with a gun they made, even if there was no evidence that the company did anything wrong. It was an ongoing problem that threatened to bankrupt the industry over nothing, so Congress stepped in and acted.

For a while, that did the trick.

Then the Sandy Hook shooting happened and anti-gunners decided to make it about the marketing of the gun. No one ever showed that the killer had seen a single advertisement for the weapon. He didn’t buy it, after all. He just murdered his own mother to take her guns and use it to hurt others.

It seemed to open a door, and with the proliferation of full-auto switches being added to Glock and similar handguns, it was all the anti-gunners needed. They figured they had a roadmap, and state legislatures obliged them by creating laws that explicitly allowed the lawsuits to be filed.

Now, it’s time to fight back and keep that aspect of the battle out of the courtrooms once and for all.

NSSF^®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, welcomes the U.S. House of Representatives introduction of H.R. 9298, the Stopping Harmful and Outrageous Torts (SHOT) Act that would strengthen the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).

The legislation, introduced by U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt (R-Kan.), is a companion bill to S. 4775 that would protect against frivolous public nuisance lawsuits that have been allowed by 11 states relying on unspecified “reasonable” liability standards.

“NSSF applauds Congressman Derek Schmidt’s leadership in introducing the SHOT Act to strengthen the PLCAA to close manufactured gaps created over time by misguided court decisions that have permitted frivolous lawsuits against members of the firearm industry that a bipartisan Congress intended to prohibit over 20 years ago,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel.

“This lawfare is supported chiefly by gun control activists, antigun politicians and large ‘white shoe’ law firms seeking to blame industry members for the criminal and unlawful misuse of legal, well designed and lawfully sold products. These lawsuits are intended to bankrupt the firearm industry and impose gun control measures through litigation.”

The SHOT Act would strengthen PLCAA protections to ensure that responsible and law-abiding manufacturers and retailers of firearms, ammunition and component parts are no longer unjustly blamed in federal and state civil actions for “the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse” these products that function as designed and intended

It’s absolutely pathetic that we need something like the SHOT Act, but here we are.

The truth is that the anti-gun jihadists will never be satisfied with just trying to take away our rights in the state legislatures or in Congress. They also want to make it virtually impossible for anyone to purchase a firearm in the first place, because then it doesn’t matter if they win the legislative fights. It’s irrelevant if you have the right to keep and bear arms because there are no arms available to keep and bear.

And if they can bully the companies into not selling to you, it’s not even a matter of the law. That’s what this has always been about. The lawfare isn’t about right and wrong, but about blocking our right in such a way that we have no recourse but to take it.

That’s wrong, and I hope to all that I hold dear that they never get away with this crap.

In the meantime, hopes aren’t enough. We need action.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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