End Gun Manufacturer Immunity

Companies that produce products specifically designed to kill people require thoughtful and responsible oversight. That’s just common sense. The government has a public interest in ensuring that the products gun manufacturers produce are marketed and used as safely as possible. If gun manufacturers are reckless and lawmakers fail to hold them accountable, they should both have to answer for their behavior under laws against public endangerment.

Currently, the gun industry exploits loopholes and weak laws to maximize profits. Worse, it is protected from legal liability by a federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). The NRA has also successfully lobbied thirty-four states to provide similar legal immunity within their own jurisdictions. All of these laws shield gun manufacturers and dealers from facing lawsuits when they sell their inherently dangerous products in dangerous ways.

PLCAA came out of a slew of legal challenges in the 1990s and the early 2000s that culminated in an effort to sue gunmakers for continuing to knowingly sell guns to dealers who regularly funneled weapons to criminals and for failing to include safety features that could have saved lives. In 2000, Smith & Wesson settled several of these civil lawsuits and agreed to sell safety devices with its handguns and hold its authorized dealers to a certain code of conduct. Four years later, Bushmaster agreed to alter its distribution practices after families of the victims killed by the DC Snipers sued the manufacturer and Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply for negligent sales practices. A study of the effects of undercover police stings and civil lawsuits on gun dealers concluded that these techniques significantly reduced their willingness to sell guns to criminals.¹

But the lawsuits posed a real financial threat to the gun industry. Manufacturers feared that they would have to pass the costs of large jury awards on to consumers, pricing some buyers out of the marketplace and perhaps forcing smaller gunmakers out of business. Therefore, in 2005, the NRA successfully lobbied Congress to pass—and President George W. Bush to sign—a law that prevents victims or surviving relatives from suing a gun manufacturer or dealer when the shooting is negligent or criminal. Few other industries enjoy such protection.

Consumers, for instance, can sue General Motors if it makes cars that can’t withstand a minor crash. The person who crashes the car is partly responsible for the accident—she may be driving recklessly or under the influence—but we as a society have agreed that General Motors is liable for producing steering wheels that hurt drivers when they get into collisions or developing brakes that don’t work properly in stress situations. Manufacturers of a product must prepare for the worst, for reality, not for best-case scenarios. Gun manufacturers and gun dealers pushed through a law to exempt them from this very basic principle that defines the relationship between corporations and governmental oversight. Under this law, gunmakers cannot be held liable for marketing firearms in a way that feeds an illegal market and allows those guns to be used by criminal syndicates, nor can they be sued for failing to implement safety features that could make firearms safer.

When a thirteen-year-old boy pulled the trigger of his father’s handgun because he believed it was unloaded and unintentionally killed his thirteen-year-old friend, the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed the family’s lawsuit against the gunmaker, Beretta. The court found that the boy acted as a criminal in a negligent way and absolved the manufacturer from any potential liability. The family claimed that Beretta could have easily prevented the tragedy if it had included additional features like an internal lock, a magazine-disconnect safety, or a chamber-loaded indicator. But the case was never considered on its merits. The company faced no pressure—financial or otherwise—to manufacture safer guns. The family was prohibited from accessing the court system to seek relief.

Similarly, relatives of victims from the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, filed a lawsuit against Remington, the manufacturer of the military-style assault rifle that killed twenty-six people on December 14, 2012. The suit claimed that the company should be held responsible for marketing to untrained civilians a firearm designed to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible. The lawsuit also argued that the marketing materials for Remington’s AR-15-style Bushmaster specifically targeted young men and appealed to them with hypermasculine and violent messaging. An ad for the gun included the tagline, “Consider your man card reissued.”

Nevertheless, a judge dismissed the lawsuit from the Connecticut Superior Court, citing the gun industry’s immunity. “This action falls squarely within the broad immunity provided,” she said.²