Until a few years ago, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was widely assumed to shield the industry from suits over mass shootings and other acts of violence. But the landscape has changed.
Families of children and teachers killed in last month’s Texas school massacre face a formidable legal battle if they decide to sue the gun-maker whose AR-15 semi-automatic rifle was used in the attack.Their main challenge would be overcoming the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a 2005 federal law designed to defend gun-makers from civil claims when their products are used to kill people.
The political debate since the May 24 mass shooting in Uvalde and another one 10 days earlier at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, has focused on modest bipartisan gun control measures in Congress, which culminated in a bill President Joe Biden signed into law on Saturday. But that advance for gun control advocates was overshadowed by a June 23 landmark Supreme Court ruling that may lead to more firearms on the streets of big cities.
Judges broadly interpreted PLCAA for years after it was signed into law, discouraging lawsuits, said Kristina Infante, a Miami lawyer. Her firm has a suit pending against Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. over the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 14 students and three staff members perished.
The NSSF filed a brief in support of Remington Arms Co.’s Bushmaster after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. For Uvalde families, the best template may be the litigation over Sandy Hook, where an AR-15 was used to gun down 20 kids and six staff members. The families that sued Remington alleged PLCAA didn’t bar claims that it engaged in wrongful marketing under state law by creating combat-style ads encouraging civilians to carry out offensive missions against “perceived enemies.”
“It was a significant ruling because it shattered a perception of invulnerability that the gun industry seemed to enjoy,” Josh Koskoff, the lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said in an interview. Another potential landmark case has been grinding away in Gary, Indiana, for more than two decades. The city sued the biggest firearms manufacturers in the U.S. in 1999, alleging they were liable for rampant gun violence in the community because they had knowingly flooded it with products designed to kill.
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