The Protection fo Lawful Commerce of Arms Act was supposed to stop all of the lawsuits focusing on the firearm industry based on the actions of third parties. In other words, a violent criminal shooting someone couldn't be blamed on the company that produced the gun. There were logical exceptions to that, of course. For example, if you could show that the company failed to act according to the law and sold that gun to someone who shouldn't have been able to buy it, then all protections would go away. The law also failed to protect acts of negligence on the part of the manufacturers. If your gun blew up on you, you could sue.
And some people have sued under those latter grounds and won, because a company screwed up, and that should always be up for a lawsuit.
But anti-gunners have decided to go after gun companies for a variety of new reasons, all basically premised as they should have known what they were doing would get someone hurt. In other words, that they were negligent, even if they weren't.
A new bill seeks to prevent that, and it comes from a pretty unlikely source, considering.
If there’s one thing certain about anti-gun tactics, it’s that gun-ban advocates are always trying to blame gun manufacturers for the criminal use of their lawfully made, legally sold products and hold them liable for that criminal use.
Outgoing U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has now introduced legislation to curb such anti-gun antics. On June 12, Cornyn filed S. 4775, the Stopping Harmful and Outrageous Torts (SHOT) Act, which would strengthen the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). The legislation is crafted to protect gunmakers and sellers against frivolous public nuisance lawsuits that have been allowed by 11 states relying on unspecified “reasonable” liability standards.
Cornyn isn’t pulling punches on what he calls the anti-gun lawfare campaign
“I am a proud supporter of the PLCAA, which protects our firearms industry from the constant onslaught of frivolous attacks by the Radical Left, progressive officials and rogue activist judges,” Sen. Cornyn said in a news release announcing the measure. “This legislation would strengthen the PLCAA to ensure it can continue to defend law-abiding Americans’ Second Amendment rights against anti-gun groups’ evolving tactics, and I urge the Senate to bring it to the floor for a vote as soon as possible.”
Interesting, isn't it?
Of course, if Cornyn had done this last year, he might have had a bit better luck fending off Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his primary race.
Then again, maybe not. While the NSSF seems to be receptive, the Firearms Policy Coalition is less than thrilled. In a statement, the FPC argued, "Unfortunately, Senator John Cornyn’s SHOT Act (S. 4775)—in the form presented to FPC—badly misses the mark."
The statement doesn't say exactly how it missed the mark, only that it does. As of right now, the text doesn't seem to be public, so I can't say for certain where the disconnect might be. The FPC had its own proposal, so it might be easy to chalk it up to sour grapes at Cornyn not introducing their version, but without some ability to look at what each said, it's a little early to chalk anything up to such a thing.
As it stands, anything would be better than nothing here and now, especially as it's clear they think they've found a way to destroy the firearm industry unless they toe the anti-gun line, which would be a disaster for the average American, because that line would likely include an end to consumer sales of firearms.
Of course, I say that, but I should also recognize that Cornyn proved he wasn't our friend with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and we sent him into political retirement, so I shouldn't be so easy to accept this as a net good for gun rights.
