The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act provides for a lot of protections for gun manufacturers. The most broad protection being that gun makers largely cannot be sued when their products – pistols, etc. – are used in the commission of violent crimes. And there’s been a major push by the Democrat Party to rescind that protection and open up gun makers – e.g., Glock, Smith & Wesson, etc., – to liability for every instance of a violent crime wherein one of their firearms was used.
With the obvious intent of that push being to flood gun manufacturers with lawsuits and force them out of business.
Absent that rescission, there’s been a push for another legal theory: gun makers are instead accessories to the crimes in which their firearms are used. And stepping up to the plate on that idea was… Mexico.
Mexico sued all the major firearms manufacturers in the United States under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. In trying to weasel their way into one of the exceptions declared by that statute, Mexico alleged that those firearms manufacturers “aided and abetted unlawful gun sales that routed firearms to Mexican drug cartels” by failing to exercise “reasonable care” to see to it their products did not end up in the hands of people who would use them to commit crimes.
This is akin to car manufacturers being held responsible for drunk driving deaths for failing to take “reasonable care” to ensure their cars weren’t driven by drunk people.
But Mexico goes further in their allegations. Saying that the firearm manufacturers are “willful accessories” to unlawful gun sales by the FFLs who ultimately sold those firearms to the Mexican cartels – whether knowingly or not. Which is akin to car manufacturers being held responsible when a dealer sells one of their vehicles to someone with a history of DUIs.
And in trying to declare that the firearm manufacturers are “willful accessories”, Mexico claims the firearm manufacturers:
- supply firearms to FFLs they know are making illegal sales of those firearms,
- aren’t exercising control over any distribution networks to ensure firearms aren’t being provided to FFLs known to make illegal sales, and
- make “design and marketing decisions” intended to stimulate demand for their products by people barred by law from having them.
Again, all of these allegations can be made against car manufacturers as well. Yet they aren’t.
And in a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in an opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan – who isn’t known to be friendly to gun rights – the idea of holding gun manufacturers liable for crimes committed by people using their products is… largely dead in the water.
Now this still leaves open the possibility that Congress can rescind the protections Federal law affords firearm manufacturers, but that isn’t happening any time soon.
