For decades, anti-gunners have been trying to blame the firearm industry, particularly manufacturers, for every gunshot fired in their communities. They seem to think that Smith & Wesson should have a kill switch installed on every firearm or something.
And their latest attack on the gun industry isn't just a threat to the industry. It's a threat to us.
It seems that many think they've found a way around the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, and they're exploiting it, as we've all seen. And this threat will have far-reaching ramifications.
Anti-gun activists think they have figured out a way around the Second Amendment, democratic accountability, and the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to impose a limitless raft of gun control on the American people.
The strategy is to enact what civilian disarmament advocates term “firearm industry responsibility” laws in anti-gun states. These laws impose a duty on members of the firearms industry to institute “reasonable controls” over the sale and distribution of their products, on top of the mountains of explicit state and federal statutes and regulations they are tasked to comply with, lest they face ruinous civil liability.
The term “reasonable controls” is vague and ill-defined, resulting in the decidedly unreasonable circumstance where gun industry members can’t know how to comply with the law. These statutes empower anti-gun government officials to abuse the vague language in a manner that imposes ever-expanding restrictions on the industry and its customers, limited only by the officials’ imagination. Moreover, this legislation impacts not just firearms dealers, manufacturers, and distributors as they would be understood under federal law, but includes any business involved in the stream of commerce for ammunition or any other firearm-related products.
The goal is to use the threat of devastating civil liability to force the firearms industry to restrict the rights of themselves and their customers by instituting gun controls that were not enacted (and often rejected) through the democratic process and may be found unconstitutional if imposed directly by government. The entire enterprise is a grotesque and cynical evasion of democratic accountability and constitutional review.
Thus far, 10 states have enacted versions of this legislation, with extremist gun control advocates in Virginia also seeking to enact a variant (HB21) at present.
To illustrate this, we've got Butch's Gun World. John wrote about this one back in July. Basically, undercover officers in New Jersey walked in and bought some long gun ammunition. No documentation is required under state law for these sales, so no one at Butch's asked for any. Still, New Jersey has been trying to drop the hammer on the gun store because it didn't follow a law that doesn't exist.
Their "reasoning" seemed to be that because they bought a lot of it, the store should have taken unrequired steps to determine if it was intended for illicit purposes or not.
Now, how in the hell is a private gun store going to do that?
That's the point, though. These laws aren't designed to make sense. They're designed to make it difficult for the firearm industry to even exist in a lawful way.
As more states pass laws like these, it creates a greater framework for the gun industry to find itself in the judicial crosshairs. Innocent sales in total compliance with the law will, in time, morph into lawsuits. Not because something happened, but because some malicious politician thinks it might have, and that will be enough.
In time, businesses will close rather than deal with this mess. Manufacturers and distributors will abandon entire states rather than deal with frivolous lawsuits based on nothing but someone's feelings.
Now, keep in mind that these same states tend to also ban privately made firearms and mandate that all sales between individuals require going through a licensed gun dealer, and consider the ramifications if there aren't any.
Mexico, for example, only has something like two gun stores in the country. It means most Mexicans can never even consider lawfully buying a gun based on that simple fact. The same happens when entire states become gun deserts.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms can still exist on paper, but without actual access to arms, it's nothing but words on a page. Who needs gun control when no one can get a gun?
So yeah, to call this an existential threat to the Second Amendment isn't hyperbole. It's a literal description of what can happen if these measures are allowed to continue taking hold.
Sorry, hard pass.
