Why shouldn't the gun industry be liable for damage done by its products? Calling All Progressives!

[Jim Lane]

7. Those companies ARE protected from the kinds of lawsuits being called for here

Last edited Sun Mar 25, 2018, 06:11 AM - Edit history (1)

At Charlottesville, one of the Nazis drove his car into a crowd of demonstrators, killing Heather Heyer and injuring several others. Those victims have no cause of action against the manufacturer of the automobile.

There are restrictions on advertising and other ways that companies promote their products. The PLCAA doesn't immunize gun manufacturers from suits for violating such rules. As the linked article states, the PLCAA governs suits "for the harm caused solely by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.”

I favor legislation to address the gun problem. I oppose the back-door use of courts to circumvent the legislative process by imposing liability on defendants we don't like.

And I am not now, nor have I ever been, a gun-humper. I've never even owned any type of firearm.

ETA: The basic point of the PLCAA is to block lawsuits that would be analogous to a suit by a Charlottesville victim against the automobile manufacturer. Whenever Congress passes a law, however, lawyers set to work looking for loopholes, strained interpretations, legislative oversights, etc. It would obviously be reasonable to amend the law to fix any problems of that sort.

For example, this report from the Congressional Research Service notes that one of the PLCAA exceptions allows an action for "negligent entrustment" if a gun dealer sells a gun to someone when the dealer "knows, or reasonably should know," that the buyer is likely to misuse it. The problem is that, if you make your way through the chain of definitions in the law, you find that a manufacturer selling directly to such a person might not be a "seller" as defined in the law and might therefore be immune. My guess is that Congress, in drafting the exception, was thinking about gun shops and simply overlooked the possibility of direct sales by manufacturers. That loophole should be closed. A manufacturer selling direct to the public should be held to the same standards as a dealer.