Cynical Strategies To Subvert The
Protection Of Lawful Commerce In Arms Act

Since President George W. Bush signed the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) into law on Oct. 26, 2005, those bent on civilian disarmament have sought to bypass the legislation's clear commands. In fact, 20 years later, gunmakers were fending off a frivolous nuisance suit from the city of Gary, Ind., filed in 1999, despite the PLCAA and state-analogue legislation.

More recently, gun-control advocates have sought to enact so-called "gun industry accountability" legislation in jurisdictions controlled by anti-gun lawmakers as an explicit attempt to subvert the PLCAA. These laws pose a threat to more than just the firearm industry's bottom line and directly impact law-abiding Americans' ability to access the firearms, ammunition and other equipment necessary to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

First consider why the PLCAA was enacted.

In the mid-1990s, gun-control supporters, trial attorneys and anti-gun, big-city politicians teamed up to abuse tort law to attack the gun industry (and by proxy American gun owners) by attempting to hold the industry accountable for the third-party criminal misuse of their products. U.S. tort law has long held that a person or entity cannot be held responsible for a third party's criminal acts. In enacting the PLCAA, Congress codified this longstanding principle of tort law that was under threat from the politicized litigation. …