A number of states across the country have passed laws in recent years that are designed to make it easier to sue gun makers over the actions of violent criminals, despite the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that was adopted on a bipartisan basis twenty years ago.
Illinois has already adopted the Firearms Industry Responsibility Act, which allows for lawsuits to be brought for (among other things) marketing firearms, accessories and related products in a way that promotes paramilitary or private militia activity or supposedly marketing their products to children by using images of minors in marketing material or placing ads in publications that primarily cater to minors (even a magazine aimed at the youth shooting sports).
That's not enough for the anti-gunners, though. Bills pending in the House and Senate known as the Responsibility in Firearm Legislation (RIFL) Act would create a firearms manufacturer licensing program in Illinois, with the total cost of licenses issued equal to the "public health costs and financial burdens from firearm injuries and deaths." The cost of a license would vary from manufacturer to manufacturer depending on their market share, as well as how many of their products are recovered in connection with a crime.
This idea is crazy enough as is, but one supporter is suggesting tweaks that would essentially allow Illinois bureaucrats to micromanage the operations of gun makers, even if they don't manufacture a single firearm in the state of Illinois. Quinesha Bentley, a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at the University of Illinois and a policy fellow with Democrat state Sen. Paul Faraci, argues that, "[i]n tandem with the threshold mechanism, a robust checks-and-balances system should be instituted to ensure transparency, regulatory integrity and ethical business practices."
She wants a supposedly independent commission to be set up as part of the RIFL Act that would evaluate the types of firearms being produced and their intended purpose, the justification for manufacturing "high-power or military-grade firearms," the "distribution pathways through which these weapons enter circulation," and the marketing strategies used to promote firearm sales.
Presumably, if the commission decided that a particular company couldn't justify making certain firearms or objected to its marketing strategy, it would at least be able to recommend that the manufacturer lose its license to sell its products in Illinois, or even refer the company for civil litigation by the Illinois Attorney General's Office.
Of course, no other industry operating in the state of Illinois would be subject to this kind of meddling. In 2017, there were more than 30,000 arrests for drunk driving and around 350 fatal accidents involving alcohol-impaired drivers. Where is the Responsibility in Alcohol Legislation Act that would create an licensing system for any company that sells alcohol-related products in the state, and subject them to million-dollar fines or civil litigation if a prohibitionist bureaucrat doesn't like that company's marketing materials or products?
Bentley claims that the RIFL Act, along with her proposed commission, would "not abolish the right to manufacture or own firearms but would redefine corporate responsibility as a prerequisite for market participation."
By embedding oversight and proportional liability into the economics of both manufacturing and promotion, this model transforms the valuation of human life from an abstract moral principle into a concrete regulatory mandate — ensuring that the social and economic costs of gun violence are borne not by the public, but by those who profit from its possibility.
And what about violent crimes that don't involve firearms? Who pays for those "social and economic costs"?
Gunmakers aren't responsible for the actions of violent criminals any more than car makers (or booze makers) are responsible for the acts of drunk drivers. This isn't about oversight or proportional liability. It's about establishing a regulatory framework that makes it virtually impossible for the firearms industry to operate in Illinois... and any other state so Democrat-dominated that that this nightmarish legislation can become law.
The Senate version of the RIFL Act currently has 24 co-sponsors, while the companion bill in the House has 32 supporters. There are only 59 seats in the Senate, so this legislative atrocity is nearing majority support in the upper chamber, and has garnered support from more than 1/3rd of the state House.
Those are just the co-sponsors, mind you. The bills could easily attract more support from Democrats if they reach the floor of the House or Senate. Thankfully, neither bill has seen any movement since they were referred to the Senate Assignments Committee and the House Rules Committee this past spring, but that doesn't mean the RIFL Act won't be a priority for Illinois Democrats in the new year... or that anti-gun politicians in other blue states won't pick up the idea and run with it as well.
