The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was, at least in theory, supposed to end the lawfare against the firearm industry that was designed explicitly to make it too difficult to sell guns to the general public. Anti-gunners would take on gun manufacturers, blame them for what third parties did with those guns, and try to bankrupt them.
And the law was meant to put an end to it.
We've seen plenty of examples of people trying to work around that, of course, by targeting their marketing and such, but we should also remember that the old lawsuits never entirely went away.
One has been holding on for more than a decade and a half. Now, though, it's at least finally dead, and the NSSF is thrilled to see it.
NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, praises the unanimous decision by the Indiana Court of Appeals to end the City of Gary, Indiana’s 26-year-old frivolous lawsuit against firearm manufacturers that sought to hold them responsible for the criminal actions of unrelated and remote third parties. The Court upheld the constitutionality of a recently enacted law — championed by NSSF — providing that only the state of Indiana can bring a lawsuit against a firearm industry member. As a result, it directed the trial court to dismiss the lingering Smith & Wesson Corp. v. City of Gary public nuisance lawsuit, which failed to provide any evidence of wrongdoing despite more than a quarter century of litigation.
“This is a tremendous day for of the rule of law, common sense and the firearm industry,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. “The City of Gary never had a serious claim. Instead, it was committed to a losing lawfare strategy to abuse the courts in order to force gun control policy outside of legislative channels. The bottom line is that these sorts of frivolous claims have no business clogging our courts and special-interest groups cannot circumvent elected representative bodies by attempting legislation through litigation. NSSF is deeply grateful to Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita for his strong defense of this law.”
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The City of Gary first filed their claims in 1999, as part of a coordinated effort by over 40 big city mayors who conspired together through the U.S. Conference of Mayors with gun control activist from Brady United (formerly known as the Brady Center) trial lawyers.
Honestly, this is always stupid.
If you can show that the manufacturers or dealers actually did something illegal, that would be one thing, but none of these lawsuits ever actually showed any such thing. They simply blamed gun manufacturers for the actions of criminals, none of whom got those guns from the manufacturers or dealers.
It would be akin to filing a lawsuit against companies like Toyota and Honda because street racers like to soup up those cars and use them for street races, which are a public nuisance, too.
The thing is, neither company is responsible for what car buyers eventually do with their vehicles, and most didn't even buy them from one of the companies' dealers. They got them used and then modified them.
Kind of like how they tried to sue Glock because people could obtain one of their guns and put a full-auto switch on it.
Gary and the other cities that tried this, or are still trying it, aren't really blaming manufacturers for their problems. They simply want to make it so you can't buy guns, and if they can make it too expensive for these companies to sell to people like you or me, then they don't need laws in place to prevent you from buying one.
You can't buy what ain't for sale.
Now, at least that chapter is finally closed. Smith & Wesson did nothing wrong.
Well, except for the HUD deal back in the day and producing the Sigma. I'll still blame them for those.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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