Bill Making it Easier to Sue Gun Stores, Firearm Manufacturers Met With Massive Grassroots Opposition

Connecticut lawmakers heard hours of testimony on the deceptively named Firearms Industry Responsibility Act last week, the vast majority of which was opposed to the bill that makes it easier to sue gun makers and sellers. Now the question is whether those legislators will actually listen to the voices of their constituents, or ignore them in favor of their friends in the gun control lobby. 

HB 7042 would allow for civil lawsuits against a person, firm, corporation, company, partnership, society, joint stock company, trade association, or any other entity or association engaged in the manufacture, distribution, importation, marketing, wholesale or retail sale of “firearm industry products” if they fail to exercise “reasonable controls” of their products. 

And what are “reasonable controls” under the legislation? I wish there was a simple and succinct way to explain it, but it’s better to just quote from the bill itself so you can see just how bad this would be for FFLs, distributors, and manufacturers. 

“Reasonable controls” means procedures, acts and practices that26 are designed, implemented and enforced to do all of the following: 

(A) Prevent the sale or distribution of a firearm industry product to a straw purchaser, a firearm trafficker, a person prohibited from possessing a firearm under state or federal law, or a person about whom there is reasonable cause to believe such person is at substantial risk of using a firearm industry product to harm themself or another or of possessing or using a firearm industry product unlawfully. 

(B) Ensure that a firearm industry member complies with section 29-34 28b of the general statutes.

(C) Prevent the sale or distribution of a firearm industry product designed, sold, advertised, marketed or promoted in a manner that foreseeably promotes conversion of a legal firearm industry product into an illegal firearm industry product. 

(D) Ensure that the firearm industry member complies with the provisions of section 2 of this act and all other applicable provisions of state and federal law, and does not otherwise advertise, market or promote the unlawful manufacture, sale, possession, marketing or use of a firearm industry product.

As vague as that language is, HB 7042 gets even worse. The bill further defines “reasonable controls” to mandate the following:

(b) No firearm industry member shall provide a firearm industry product to another firearm industry member when there is reasonable cause to believe that such other firearm industry member is engaged in conduct that is in violation of this section. 

(c) No firearm industry member shall advertise, market or promote firearm industry products in this state in a manner that promotes  unlawful sales, unlawful use or use that promotes risk to public safety. 

The bill leaves it up to a judge or jury to decide whether or not a particular advertisement or piece of marketing material promotes “unlawful use” or a risk to public safety, but the language is so open-ended that a gun store, distributor, or manufacturer could easily be sued if one of their products is ever used in a crime, even if the gun was acquired through theft or a straw purchase. 

Gun control outfits like Giffords are pushing hard to get HB 7042 enacted, but they ran into a buzzsaw of opposition at the statehouse in Hartford when a hearing on the bill took place in the House Judiciary Committee last week. 

[A] line of gun shop owners and other businesses affiliated with firearms stepped up to testify on Wednesday — written testimony submitted in opposition to the bill outnumbered testimony in support by nearly 20 to 1 — and told legislators that the bill would put their businesses at serious risk. 

“ As far as the misuse of a firearm … whether it was unintentional or intentional, this could lead to frivolous lawsuits that could legitimately bankrupt my company,” Matthew McBrien, also a co-owner of Patriot Ware Holsters, told the committee.

Business owners and advocates argued that Connecticut’s laws are already stringent when it comes to who can purchase a gun. 

“We have plenty of things in place to prevent people from doing things illegally. We have federal and state laws that we follow,” said Krystofer DiBella, the owner of Tobacco Valley Guns in East Windsor. “If I sell something and then it gets resold again, does that still come back to me as an industry person? I mean, we follow every state law to a T.” 

“My point there is that criminals do not come to our shop to buy firearms. We have stringent regulations in Connecticut that we have to abide by as FFL [Federal Firearms License] dealers,” he said.  

His fear, he said, was that the proposed legislation would make it impossible for him to get insurance for his business. In the last 40 years, he said, the annual cost of insurance for his business has quadrupled — from $5,000 to $20,000. He attributed at least part of this to the regulations Connecticut has passed around guns. 

The small number of gun control activists on hand to testify in favor of the bill trotted out their usual buzzwords about “accountability” and “bad apple” dealers, but there are already plenty of statutes in place that allow for criminal prosecution for gun dealers who engage in firearms trafficking or turn a blind eye to straw purchases. HB 7042 isn’t about stopping criminals from getting a gun. It’s about suing any store that sells a gun later used in a crime into oblivion. 

The fact that opponent testimony outnumbered supporters by almost 20-to-1 is clear evidence that FFLs are terrified that this legislation could dlead to so many junk lawsuits they’ll be forced to shut down their business. Given the rampant hostility towards the Second Amendment exhibited by the Democratic majority in Hartford, however, I’m not sure that the massive opposition will matter when the bill comes up for a vote.