Maryland and Baltimore Governments Team Up With Everytown Law to Sue Glock

Just yesterday we wrote about a new bill introduced in Congress by Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman that seeks to strengthen the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act by allowing lawsuits filed in state court that meet the requirements for protection under the PLCAA to be moved to federal court so that those protections will kick in. Today, Everytown Law along with the governor of Maryland the mayor of Baltimore gave us a perfect example of why the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act Jurisdiction Act is needed. 

The gun control group and their political allies have filed a lawsuit against Glock in the circuit court for city of Baltimore alleging the gun company “bears legal responsibility” for the illegal modifications of their pistols to fire full-auto. Everytown Law, Maryland, and Baltimore are hoping to do an end run around the PLCAA by bringing their action in state court using the state’s Gun Industry Accountability Act, which was signed into law last year. 

As we’ve seen in almost identical litigation filed in Chicago and New Jersey, the anti-gunners are not only demanding that Glock change its design to make it impossible to modify its firearms through the use of switches or auto-sears. They’re calling on a judge to halt all sales of Glock handguns to Maryland residents as well. 

After a number of suits against gunmakers failed in the early 2000s, including one in Maryland, Congress crafted the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005, which protects gun manufacturers and dealers from being held liable when crimes have been committed with their products, though with some exceptions.

Here’s the problem with Everytown’s argument: virtually every firearm that’s legally sold in this country can be illegally modified in some form or fashion. Rifles and shotguns can have their barrels cut down, for example. Pistols can, with some effort (and sometimes not much effort at all) be illegally equipped with homemade suppressors. Does that mean that every firearm manufacturer can be sued because criminals modify their products?

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was meant to end these junk lawsuits blaming the firearms industry for the actions of criminals, but the gun control lobby has been pretty savvy in their attempts to exploit the provision that allows for lawsuits based on alleged violations of state statutes dealing with the sale and marketing of firearms. Two decades after the PLCAA was enacted, anti-gunners are doing their utmost to render the law toothless, and the additional protections suggested by Lee and Hageman would go a long way toward protecting the lawful commerce in arms that’s under assault by the gun control lobby and anti-2A politicians. And if Maryland politicians want to really address the criminal misuse of firearms or their illegal modification, they can start by cracking down on violent offenders instead of looking for ways to keep them out of prison.